Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofmodeOOphytrich 


FIFTY   YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 


i 


PORTRAIT   OF    MRS.    MATHIAS 


JOHN   S.    SARGENT 


-FIFTY  YEARS 

OF 

MODERN    PAINTING 

COROT   TO    SARGENT 


BY 

J.  E.  PHYTHIAN 

AUTHOR    OF    "  G.    F.    WATTS  :     A    BIOGRAPHY    AND    AN    ESTIMATE  ' 
"trees    in    NATURE,    MYTH    AND    ART,"    ETC. 


WITH    EIGHT    ILLUSTRATIONS   IN   COLOUR   AND 
THIRTY-TWO   IN    HALF-TONE 


NEW    YORK 

E.   P.   BUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

1908 


pi 


im  BOO! 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAOa 

I.  Introductory  .  ...        1 

II.  The  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood     .         .       16 

III.  The  Impressionists  and  their  Allies         .       52 

IV.  The  Course  of  Pre-Raphablitism       .        .129 
V.  Painting  in  France'  .  .         .190 

VI.     Painting  in  Other  Countries             .        .  236 

VII.     Painting  in  Great  Britain     .             .         .  278 

VIII.     Painting  in  Great  Britain  (continued)       .  355 

Index         .                .                ...  385 


erratum.— Page  71,  liue  19,  for  The  Rainbow  read  Spring. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


IN  COLOUR 


Portrait  of  Mrs.  Mathias  . 

By  permission  of  Mrs.  Mathias. 

Waterloo  Bridge  ....     Claude  Monet 
Dublin  Municipal  Gallery  of  Modern  Art. 

Concert  aux  Tuileries 

Lane  Collection. 

Danseuses  en  SciiNE 

By  permission  of  Madame  Marchesi 

Beata  Beatrix       .... 
The  Boyhood  of  Raleigh     . 


John  S.  Sargent      Frontispiece 


Edouard  Manet     . 

Edgard  Degas 

Dante  Gabriel  Rosseiti 
J.  E.  Millais 


Don  Quixote  and  Sancho  Panza  .    Honors  Daumier  . 
Lane  Collection. 

Portrait  of  the  Artist  in  his 


Studio 

Lane  Collection. 


/.  McNeill  Whistler 


PAGE 

84 

116 

122 

172 
184 
226 

358 


IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 


The  Oath 

Jacques  Louis  David 

10 

Photograph  :  W.  A.  Mansell. 

The  Hireling  Shepherd 

Holman  Hunt 

26 

Manchester  Corporation  Art  Gallery. 

The  Abduction       .... 

Eugene  Delacroix  . 

54 

Collection  Durand-Ruel. 

La  Source      

J.  D.  Ingres . 

56 

Photograph:  W.  A.  Mansell. 

Bull  and  Heifer  .... 

Gustave  Courhet     . 

68 

Collection  Durand-Ruel. 

The  Hay- Wain       .... 

John  Constable 

62 

Photograph :  W.  A.  Mansell. 

L'Amour  Vainqueur 

J.  F.  Millet  . 

68 

By  permission  of  Messrs.  Wallia  tc  Son,  The  French  Gallery 
Photograph :  The  Studio, 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Avignon  :  View  of  the  Palace  of 
THE  Popes        .... 
Lane  Collection. 

The  Foed 

Collection  Durand-Ruel. 


The  Harbour  of  Trouville 
Photograph :  W.  A.  Mansell. 

Rain,  Steam  and  Speed 

Photograph  :  W.  A.  Mansell. 

View  in  Vincennes,  Spring. 

Lane  Collection. 

La  Loge  

Collection  Durand-Ruel. 

Mlle.  Eva  Gonzales 

Lane  Collection. 

The  Last  of  England  . 

Photograph  :  W.  A.  Mansell. 

Le  Chant  d' Amour 

Photograph :  F.  HoUyer. 

L'Enfant  aux  Confitures    . 

By  permission  of  Madame  Marchesi. 

La  CniMfeRE 

Photograph :  Giraudon. 

The  Reaper 

Collection  Durand-Ruel. 

The  Late  Hour     .... 

By  permission  of  J.  C.  Dnicker,  Esq. 
On  the  Heath,  Laren  . 

By  permission  of  J.  C.  Drucker,  Esq. 
Photograph  :  Boussod  Valadon  &  Co. 

Fantasy Mattheio  Maris 


Camille  Corot 
CamilU  Corot 
Eugene  Boudin 
J.  M.  W.  Turner 
Camille  Pissarro 
A,  Renoir     . 
Edouard  Manet 
Ford  Madox  Broum 
E.  Burne- Jones 
Eugene  Carriere 
Gustave  Moreau 
Puvis  de  Chavannes 
Josef  Israels 
A.  Mauve 


By  permission  of  E.  J.  Van  Wisselingh, 
Photograph :  The  Studio. 


The  Present  .... 

Lane  Collection. 

The  Woman  with  the  Goats 

By  permission  of  the  artist. 
Photograph :  F.  Bruckmann. 

The  Balcony  .... 

Collection  Durand-Ruel. 

The  Bath  of  Psyche     . 


Alfred  Stevens 
Max  Liebermann 

Ignacio  Zuloaga 
Leighton 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Love  and  Life       .... 

Photograph :  F.  Hollyer, 

Alfred  Lord  Tennyson 

Photograph :  F.  Hollyer. 

The  Building  of  the  Rick  . 

By  permission  of  C.  T.  Harris,  Esq. 
Photograph  :  H.  Dixon  &  Son. 

Lake  Bourget  from  Mont  Revard 
By  permission  of  the  artist. 

Spring 

By  permission  of  the  artist 

View  of  Chepstow  Castle    . 

By  permission  of  Sir  Charles  Darling. 


IKATIONS 

IX 

G.  F.  Watts . 

PAGE 

.     304 

G.  F.  Walts  . 

.     306 

G.  Clausen    . 

.     332 

Alfred  East  . 

.     348 

John  Lavery . 

.     364 

Wilsm  Steer 

.     372 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

/ 

THE  period  in  the  history  of  painting,  chosen  for  con- 
sideration in  this  book,  is  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  and  the  choice  might  be  taken  to  imply  the  writer's 
belief  that  conspicuous  changes  or  developments  in  art  keep 
even  pace  with  the  passing  of  half-centuries  and  centuries. 
He  does  not,  however,  hold  so  crude  a  theory.  We  do 
indeed  map  out  history,  and  art  also,  by  centuries;  but  we 
understand,  or  at  least  we  ought  to  understand,  that  such 
a  measure,  equally  with  that  of  the  reigns  of  kings  and 
queens,  is  only  a  rough  one.  We  might  as  well  expect  to 
find  charming  prospects  at  every  mile-post  along  a  high  road, 
as  changes  of  great  moment  exactly  at  each  new  century's 
beginning.  It  is  true  that  a  hundred,  or  even  fifty  years, 
are  sufficient  for  important  developments  in  many  depart- 
ments of  human  activity.  This  is  certainly  true  for  art. 
Only  we  shall  find  that  the  crucial  dates  or  periods  in  art 
are  by  no  means  to  be  given  exactly  in  round  numbers. 
But  it  did  happen  that  the  years  immediately  around  1850 
saw  changes  of  the  utmost  importance  for  modern  painting ; 
that  a  new  period  in  the  history  of  the  art  did  then  actually 
begin.  Let  us  first  test  the  truth  of  this  statement  with 
regard  to  the  art  of  our  own  country, 
s 


2  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  the  year  1821,  Constable  prophesied  that  within  thirty 
years  English  art  would  have  ceased  to  exist;  he  feared 
that  within  that  time  all  the  life  would  be  crushed  out  of 
it  by  the  heavy  weight  of  tradition.  After  a  brilliant 
career  of  only  about  a  hundred  years,  it  did  indeed  seem  as 
if  such  a  fate  might,_  temporarily  at  least,  befall  our  national 
art. 

Constable's  fear  might  well  have  been  occasioned  by  his 
own  experience  of  the  tyrannous  power  of  tradition.  Of 
all  our  landscape  painters  up  to  his  own  feme  he  was  the 
most  single-eyed  in  his  outlook  on  nature.  He  loved,  quite 
simply,  for  their  own  sake,  the  Suffolk  stream-sides  and 
woodlands,  the  reaches  of  level  country,  the  prospects  from 
gently-sloping  hill-sides,  and  the  alternation  of  sun  and 
shade  and  shower  over  all.  He  painted  them  so  that  we  are 
hardly  conscious  of  the  art  by  which  they  are  agreeably 
composed  within  the  stiff  boundaries  where  frame  and 
canvas  meet.  We  get  from  his  pictures  the  same  kind  of 
pleasure  as  we  get  from  nature  itself;  and  our  enjoyment 
of  nature  is  quickened  if  we  be  familiar  with  his  works.  It 
is  one  function  of  the  artist  to  teach  others  to  see.  Of 
course,  there  is  much  more  to  see  in  nature  than  Constable 
saw,  and  infinitely  more  to  see  than  he  recorded.  But  he 
went  to  nature,  and  has  taught  others  to  go  to  nature, 
mainly  to  take  pleasure  in  its  various  aspects,  and  not,  as 
other  painters  had  chiefly  done,  to  find  material  that  could 
be  wrought  in  the  studio  into  elaborate  works  of  art.  I  am 
far  from  suggesting  that  work  of  the  latter  kind  is  unprofit- 
able. If  any  one  will  say  that  it  is  the  more  profitable  of 
the  two,  I  will  not  say  him  nay.  Turner,  whose  art  was  of 
the  latter  kind,  shall,  at  the  moment,  be  greater  than 
Constable,  or  Constable  greater  than  Turner,  as  any  one  will. 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

I  am  not  concerned  just  now  to  argue  the  point.     I  will 
only  express  my  gratitude  to  both. 

But  Constable's  frank  enjoyment  of  nature  gave  great 
offence  to  his  contemporaries.  He  painted  the  sparkle  of 
sunshine  on  wet  leaves,  and  it  was  derisively  called  "  Con- 
stable's snow."  Chantrey,  one  varnishing-day,  took  a  brush 
and  passed  a  brown  glaze  over  it  all !  Sir  George  Beaumont 
took  oflfence  because  Constable,  who  loved  the  spring  and 
the  summer,  painted  the  woodlands  green,  as  he  saw  them 
in  those  seasons,  and  did  not  put  in  the  brown  tree  of  the 
conventional  recipe.  The  painter  who  suffered  thus  from 
tradition  might  well  fear  that  it  would  soon  have  a  fatally 
deadening  effect  on  art. 

A  general  comparison  of  past  and  present  would  help  to 
confirm  his  fear.  The  great  race  of  portrait  painters  had 
passed  away,  leaving  a  much  feebler  succession.  Reynolds 
and  Gainsborough  were  long  dead;  Romney  only  more 
recently;  Hoppner  died  in  1810;  Raeburn  in  1823; 
Lawrence  had  still  several  years  to  live ;  but  he  does  not 
rank  with  those  who  have  already  been  mentioned.  Only 
the  student  easily  calls  to  mind  the  next  generation  of  por- 
trait painters.  Howard,  Hilton,  and  Haydon,  the  painters  of 
historical  subjects,  however  we  may  estimate  their  success, 
were  still  seeking  to  emulate  the  great  Italian  masters  of  the 
late  Renaissance.  This  is  true  also  of  Etty,  though  he  ranks 
high  as  a  colourist,  and  was  an  enthusiastic  painter  of  flesh. 
The  painters  of  genre  subjects,  Wilkie,  Mulready,  Leslie, 
and  others,  worked  according  to  academic  rule ;  and  one 
need  not  be  hostile  to  the  subject  in  art  to  weary  of  their 
generally  commonplace  treatment  of  trivial  subjects.  By  the 
great  majority  of  the  painters  of  this  period,  neither  nature, 
nor   living  men  and   women,    nor   contemporary   life,    nor 


4  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

legend,  history  and  literature,  were  intensely,  passionately, 
interpreted.  Learned  dulness  or  triviality  was  the  rule. 
This,  of  course,  means  no  denial  either  of  great  ability  or  of 
inspiration  here  and  there;  but  this  is  not  sufficient.  A 
national  school  of  art  should  interpret  what  is  best  in  the 
many-sided  life  of  a  nation,  and  react  upon  the  national  life 
and  outlook  as  a  quickening,  enlightening  force.  Constable's 
fear  for  the  art  of  his  own  country,  it  must  be  admitted, 
was  not  an  unreasonable  one.  But  only  three  years  before 
the  exact  end  of  the  term  that  Constable  fixed  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  prophecy — that  is,  towards  the  close  of  1848, 
almost  at  the  mid-century — was  formed  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood,  which  had  the  avowed  purpose  of  throwing 
off  the  weight  of  tradition  and  of  bringing  art  into  closer 
relation  with  life  and  nature;  and  this  it  succeeded  in 
doing.  During  the  next  few  years  the  Brotherhood  did  a 
strenuous  work,  and  then  lapsed  as  a  formal  body;  its 
influence  upon  art,  however,  by  no  means  ending  with  its 
own  dissolution.  The  Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  and  its 
influence  upon  art,  will  find  material  for  many  pages  in 
this  book. 

If  we  cross  over  into  France  we  shall  find  that  there,  also, 
important  changes  in  art,  destined  to  have  great  and  wide- 
spreading  results,  were  taking  place  just  about  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  then  that  Corot  came  to  his 
later  manner ;  Jongkmd  and  Boudin  were  then  carrying  the 
realisation  of  atmospheric  effects  past  the  point  to  which 
Corot  and  his  contemporaries  had  taken  it.  In  1856 
Boudin  founded  the  "  Ecole  Saint  Simeon,"  of  which  more 
will  be  said  hereafter,  and  inaugurated  a  movement  that  has 
been  to  painting  in  France  even  more  important  than  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  movement  has  been  to  painting  in  England ; 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

that  has,  indeed,  spread  far  beyond  the  borders  and  the 
shores  of  France,  even  into  our  own  country,  to  the  dis- 
pleasure —  nay,  to  the  righteous  indignation  —  of  many 
English  painters  and  critics.  It  has  not  therefore  been  a 
mere  toss  of  the  coin,  or  a  crude  periodical  theory,  that 
has  led  to  the  selection  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  as  the  beginning  of  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
modern  painting. 

We  have  chosen  our  starting-point,  then,  for  reasons  thus 
briefly  stated.  But  we  may  compare  ourselves  to  mountain 
climbers,  who,  having  reached  a  level  place,  and  rested  for  a 
while,  recommence  their  ascent.  The  climb  that  lies  before 
them  is  a  continuation,  not  a  fresh  start.  More  adequately, 
perhaps,  we  may  compare  art  to  life  as  a  whole,  of  which  it 
is  a  part.  Art,  like  life,  is  at  any  time  only  to  be  under- 
stood by  reference  to  what  has  already  happened.  The  recent 
art  -  movements  that  are  our  immediate  subject  can  only 
be  understood  by  reference  to  the  antecedent  history  of  art. 
It  may  be  assumed,  however,  that  the  reader  has  a  general 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  art;  and  that  we  need  only 
indicate  here,  so  that  we  may  have  them  freshly  before  us, 
the  leading  characteristics  of  art  in  the  periods  that  imme- 
diately led  up  to  the  one  we  are  specially  to  study. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  art  had  been  almost  entirely  sub- 
ordinated to  the  purposes  of  religion  as  then  understood  by 
the  Christian  Church.  This  world,  according  to  the  then 
prevailing  belief,  was  of  no  importance  except  as  a  pre- 
paratory stage  for  a  world  to  come.  This  life  was  a  prelude 
to  eternity,  not  an  integral  part  of  it.  The  Church  alone 
had  the  secret  of  eternal  well-being.  This  was  the  theory. 
But  life  is  more  than  all  theories  of  life,  and  could  not  be 
for  long — was  in   reality  never   entirely — confined   within 


6  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  limits  of   this  one.     When  life  broke  loose  from  the 

mediaeval  theory,  art,   the  interpreter  of  life,  broke  loose 

with  it.     Men  said  to  themselves  and  to  each  other  that  life 

was  not  wholly  bad ;  they  looked  at  the  world  and  found 

that  it  was  fair.     They  did  not  entirely  throw  over  the  old 

beliefs.     Some  held  closely  to  them ;  others  held  them  in  a 

modified  form.     There  were  some  who  bound  the  bonds — or 

tried  to  bind  them — even  more  tightly  than  before.     But 

the  old  unanimity  was  gone ;  and  with  it  went  the  forcible 

control  of  men  by  the  Church.     We  of  these  days  shall 

probably  be  seen  in  the  future  not  to  have  wholly  emerged 

from  the  Middle  Ages.     In  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  the  earth 

only  passes  gradually  beyond  the  shadow  cast  by  the  moon. 

Matthew  Arnold  found  himself,  and  he  was  but  one  among 

many, 

Waudering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born. 

Art  has  reflected,  and  still  reflects,  the  confused  state  of 
mind  from  which  we  have  not  yet  passed ;  and  there  has 
been  a  further  complication :  the  rediscovery  and  steadily 
growing  understanding  of  the  art  and  thought  and  life  of 
the  earlier,  pre-Christian  world.  We  are  indeed  the  heirs  of 
the  ages,  and  our  intellectual  inheritance  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  see  in  its  true  proportions. 

Let  us  take,  not  exactly  at  random,  but  still  without  rigid 
insistence  on  arrangement,  some  examples  of  the  variety  of 
influence  and  impulse  under  which  modern  artists  have 
come.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  painted  his  portraits  of  the 
men,  women,  and  children  of  the  England  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  thinking,  not  only  of  his  sitters,  but  of  Michael 
Angelo  and  Raphael,  of  the  colour  of  Titian,  and  of  what 
constituted  the  grand  style.     Richard  Wilson  began  land 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

scape  painting  amid  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Campagna, 
because  in  his  day  all  good  things  were  supposed  to  come 
from  Italy,  and  most  if  not  all  eyes  were  turned  to  Rome  as 
summing  up  Italy.  Gainsborough,  as  he  painted  his  por- 
traits, thought  of  Vandyck,  the  pupil  of  Rubens,  whose 
northern  freedom  had  yielded  in  part  only  to  the  domination 
of  Italy.  Turner  painted  landscapes  thinking  of  Wilson, 
of  Claude,  from  whom  also  Wilson  had  learned,  and  of  the 
Dutch  landscape  painters,  who  had  courageously  looked  at 
nature  with  their  own  eyes.  John  Crome,  and  his  friends 
of  the  Norwich  school,  painted  English  landscape  in  a 
modified  Dutch  manner.  John  Constable,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  we  have  already  seen,  painted  English  landscape 
as  it  looked  to  him  and  as  it  gave  him  pleasure ;  and,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  this  independence  of  his  had  widely 
important  results  for  art.  Etty  painted  historical  and 
legendary  subjects,  thinking  of,  and  trying  to  rival,  the 
flesh  painting  and  colour  of  the  Venetians.  G.  F.  Watts 
came  under  the  influence  of  Etty.  He  also  studied  the 
Greek  sculpture  preserved  in  the  British  Museum.  He 
went  to  Italy,  and  his  work  shows  the  influence  both  of 
Florence  and  Venice.  He  went  out  with  Sir  Charles  Newton 
to  Halicarnassus,  and  was  present  when  the  ruins  of  one  of 
the  most  famous  monuments  of  ancient  Greece,  the  tomb  of 
Mausolus,  were  unearthed. 

Much  the  same  story  has  to  be  told  of  other  countries. 
In  France,  trndition  was  stronger  than  in  England.  Hogarth, 
who  stands  at  the  head  of  the  English  school  of  painting, 
waged  war  against  the  tyranny  of  tradition.  For  good  or 
for  evil,  or  partly  for  both,  a  comparatively  independent 
spirit  has  possessed  English  art.  French  "WTiters  make  it  a 
boast  that,  as  Napoleon  overran  the  whole  of  Europe  except 


8  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

this  country,  so  has  French  art  overrun  Europe  with  the 
like  exception.  Thus  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  says,  that  in  any 
international  exhibition  of  fine  arts,  the  galleries  set  apart 
for  any  nation  except  England  bear  witness  to  the  French 
influences  under  which  its  artists  have  come.  The  assaults 
of  realism  and  of  impressionism  are  broken  on  the  sestheti- 
cism  of  English  painters,  "like  the  squadrons  of  Ney  on 
the  squares  of  Wellington.  There  are  German,  Hungarian, 
Belgian,  Spanish,  Scandinavian  painters,  but  there  is  an 
English  school  of  painting." 

Not  that  the  French  writer  maintains  this  widely  prevail- 
ing tradition  of  art  to  have  been  entirely  a  creation  of 
French  genius.  He  speaks  of  the  Latin  point  of  view. 
That  is,  we  are  taken  back  to  Italy  once  more ;  and,  it  has 
to  be  said,  to  a  particular  period  in  Italian  art,  the  sixteenth 
century,  when,  at  the  end  of  a  long  period  of  technical 
development,  less  importance  was  attached  to  what  was  said 
than  to  the  manner  of  utterance. 

Of  French  painters  in  the  seventeenth  century,  M.  Bayet 
says,  in  his  Precis  d'Histoire  de  VArt,  that  Michel  Freminet, 
the  court  painter  of  Henri  lY,  produced  bad  Michael 
Angelo,  that  Simon  Vouet,  the  chief  painter  of  Louis  XIII, 
French  by  birth,  was  wholly  Italian  by  education.  Le  Sueur 
never  went  to  Italy,  but  Nicholas  Poussin  lived  there  for  a 
time,  and  with  him,  in  Rome,  there  was  quite  a  colony  of 
Frenchmen — Gaspar  Poussin,  Jacques  Stella,  Claude  Lorrain, 
Charles  Le  Brun,  and  others.  French  art  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  this  same  writer  tells  us — it  is  common  knowledge, 
but  we  may  as  well  let  a  Frenchman  say  it — "  breaks  with 
the  past  of  France,  unjustly  despises  its  worth,  admires 
nothing  but  antiquity  and  Italy.  These  tendencies,  which 
had  gradually   developed   in   the   sixteenth   century,    now 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

triumph  completely.  A  sojourn  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Alps  is  almost  an  absolute  necessity  for  every  young  artist. 
In  1666,  Louis  XIV  founds  the  French  Academy  at  Rome. 
Henceforth  the  young  men  judged  worthy  of  the  favour  are 
entertained  in  Rome  for  several  years  at  the  royal  expense. 
For  others  a  mere  stay  in  Italy  is  not  sufficient ;  they  spend 
their  life  there,  in  the  company  of  antiquities,  and  the 
works  of  the  masters  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries." 

In  the  eighteenth  century  French  art  came  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  !N"etherlands.  Watteau  was  a  Fleming ;  and 
he  and  Boucher  and  Fragonard  translated  the  heavy  jollity  of 
the  art  of  the  Low  Countries  into  terms  of  graceful  French 
gaiety,  frivolity,  and,  it  has  to  be  said,  vice — not  that  we 
must  fall  into  the  error,  to  be  mentioned  hereafter,  of 
assuming  vice  to  be  peculiarly  French ;  Hogarth  in  the 
same  century,  with  his  pictorial  attacks  on  English  vice,  may 
be  our  witness  that  this  is  not  so.  Greuze,  rather  later  than 
the  three  French  painters  just  named,  may  almost  be  called, 
as  to  his  art,  a  French  Dutchman,  with  a  moralising  ten- 
dency ;  Chardin  was  a  French  Jan  Steen,  who  differed  from 
Greuze  in  that  he  did  not  obviously  moralise ;  he  painted 
quite  exemplary  people,  chiefly  women  and  children,  as  he 
saw  them  in  daily  life.  Art  gets  into  closer  touch  with  life 
than  in  the  seventeenth  century,  even  though  it  be  often  life 
of  a  frivolous  kind.  Yet,  even  so,  tradition  weighed  more 
heavily  upon  art  in  France  than  in  England.  It  was  thus, 
also,  with  landscape  painting,  which  was  in  France  much 
more  a  thing  of  artificial  compositions  than  in  this  country, 
deriving  from  the  Poussins  and  Claude,  and  only  distantly 
related  to  nature.  Such  painters  as  Bidault  and  Michel, 
though  they  show  an  advance  on  the  landscape  painting  of 


10  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  previous  century,  are  far  behind  the  contemporary  art  of 
England. 

Before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  French  art 
returned  to  its  allegiance  to  Rome  and  the  Italian  art  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries ;  even,  indeed,  as  it  was 
supposed,  to  the  art  of  ancient  Rome.  The  leader  of  this 
movement  was  Jacques  Louis  David,  who  was  born  in  1748 
and  died  in  1825.  It  was  the  tyranny  reimposed  by  him 
that  was  thrown  off  by  the  revolutionists  of  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  very  titles  of  such  of  his 
principal  pictures  as  Tlie  Oath  of  the  Horatii  and  The  Rape 
of  the  Sahines  are  eloquent  of  the  efifect  upon  his  outlook  of 
study  in  the  French  Academy  at  Rome.  We  shall  have 
more  to  say  about  him  when  we  come  to  consider,  in  order 
to  lead  up  to  the  changes  in  French  art  at  the  beginning  of 
our  special  period,  the  character  of  the  art  of  the  period 
immediately  preceding  it. 

We  need  not  give  examples  from  the  art  of  other  coun- 
tries of  the  action  and  reaction  upon  each  other  of  contem- 
porary life  and  nature  on  the  one  hand,  and  tradition  on  the 
other.  Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  there  is  in  art 
abundant  material  for  orthodoxies  and  heresies,  for  tyrannies 
and  revolutions. 

The  purpose  of  this  book,  it  may  be  said  here,  is  not 
to  pass  judgment  on  the  various  developments  and  ten- 
dencies, the  orthodoxies  and  the  heresies,  of  art  during  the 
last  fifty  years;  nor  to  hold  a  brief  for  any  particular 
school.  Idealism,  Realism,  Impressionism,  all  have  their 
value,  and  therefore  ought  to  have  their  place.  And  in 
using  such  terms  we  ought  to  bear  in  mind  that  the 
qualities  for  which  they  respectively  stand  are  not  the 
absolutely  pecidiar  possession  of  any  particular  school.     It 


INTRODUCTORY  ti 

is  only  that  one  or  other  of  them  occupies  a  larger  place 
here  than  there. 

And  no  one  of  them  has  any  right  always  to  claim  the 
first  place.  We  who  are  not  artists  do  not  want  our  pleasure 
to  be  limited  by  what  any  particular  school  has  to  give  us ; 
or,  if  we  do  so  restrict  our  pleasure,  it  is  to  our  own  loss. 
Artists  are  not  unfrequently  good  critics  only  in  the  particular 
field  of  art  in  which  they  themselves  are  working.  How 
cautious  one  has  sometimes  to  be  in  conversation  with  them 
if  one  does  not  wish  suddenly  to  have  one's  head  almost 
blown  off !  The  dyer's  hand  is  subdued  to  what  it  works  in. 
There  are  critics  also  who  violently  take  sides.  Perhaps 
there  are  occasions  on  which  sides  ought  violently  to  be 
taken.  Still,  it  has  been  said  that  new  constitutions  are 
built  up  out  of  the  wisdom  of  those  whose  heads  have  been 
cut  off  in  revolutions.  In  the  following  pages,  if  preference 
be  shown  and  sides  taken,  it  will  not  be  by  intention  that 
this  is  done  violently.  Wliistler  shall  not  be  charged  with 
throwing  pots  of  paint  in  the  face  of  the  public;  Burne- 
Jones  shall  not  be  called  a  degenerate ;  Holman  Hunt  shall 
not  be  dismissed  as  near-sightedly  inquisitive,  though,  at  the 
same  time,  we  will  not  go  with  him  in  saying  that  Impres- 
sionism had  its  origin  in  the  profligacy  of  Parisian  student 
life.  Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  such  judgments,  they 
are  too  bold  for  us. 

There  is  another  much  debated  matter  as  to  which  a 
moderate  and  wholly  imexciting  attitude  will  be  taken  up 
here.  It  will  not  be  maintained  that  a  painting,  to  be  good 
art,  must  have  nothing  of  any  particular  moment  in  the  way 
of  subject.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  at  once  admitted  that 
artists  may  well  apply  to  their  work  an  old-time  injunction, 
given  in  regard  to  other,  but  still   human  concerns,  that 


12  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

nothing  should  be  accounted  common  or  unclean.  "We 
ought  to  be  grateful  to  any  one  who  will  open  our  eyes  to 
any  beauty  that  may  be  about  us  in  our  daily  life.  And  if 
a  painter,  or  a  whole  school  of  painters,  should  do  nothing 
more  than  this,  should  imagine  for  us  no  angels  or  saints, 
should  symbolise  no  virtues,  nor  represent  any  virtuous 
deeds,  we  ought  to  be  grateful  for  what  they  do  give  to  us, 
and  look  elsewhere  for  what  else  we  need.  Art  we  want 
often  for  art's  sake :  beauty  for  the  sake  of  beauty,  as  sweet- 
ness for  the  sake  of  sweetness.  But  we  need  not  rule  out 
expression  for  the  sake  of  expression,  or  strength  for  the 
sake  of  strength.  And  art  has  not  done  all  it  can  do,  or 
the  best  it  can  do,  and  ought  to  do,  when  it  has  produced 
something  that  is  sensuously  beautiful  and  nothing  more. 
If  we  are  to  have  any  quarrel  here — and  quarrels  do  at 
least  relieve  life  and  books  of  tameness — it  will  be  with 
those  who  will  not  have  one  thing  because  it  is  not  another, 
and  will  not  let  other  people  enjoy  themselves  in  their  own 
way.  We  are  like  Russell  Lowell,  who  would  not  have  his 
pleasure  limited  by  people  who  said  that  if  a  thing  were 
Gothic  and  not  Greek,  it  could  not  be  good. 

Also  we  will  try  to  avoid  a  narrow  patriotism  in  art  as  in 
other  things.  We  will  not  sing  "  Rule,  Britannia ! "  We 
will  gladly  sing  "  God  bless  our  native  land,"  if  immediately 
afterwards,  or  previously,  we  may  ask  that  the  native  land  of 
other  people  shall  be  blessed  also.  Herbert  Spencer  advo- 
cated a  just  balance  of  egoism  and  altruism  as  being  in  the 
end  the  best  for  everybody.  Is  it  a  solitary  experience  to 
have  been  accused  by  an  English  artist  of  want  of  patriotism 
in  promoting  in  this  country  the  exhibition  of  works  by 
foreign  artists  ?  One  has  been  told  that  foreigners  will  not  buy 
English  pictures,  and  that  therefore  English  people  ought  not 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

to  buy  foreign  pictures.  The  protectionist  gospel — or  heresy 
— is  preached  in  art  as  well  as  in  commerce.  This  book  will 
adopt  the  free  trade  position;  although  it  is  not  so  much 
purchases  that  will  concern  us  as  methods  and  ideas.  Our 
art,  at  any  period  of  our  history,  would  have  been  a  sorry 
thing  but  for  foreign  example  and  influence.  Neither  men 
nor  nations  can  profitably  live  unto  themselves,  and  of 
nothing  is  this  truer  than  of  art. 

It  might  be  thought  that  this  was  so  obvious  as  to  be  in 
no  danger  of  being  overlooked,  much  less  denied.  But  it  is 
not  so.  M,  de  la  Sizeranne  says  that  Madox  Brown,  one  of 
the  first  English  painters  with  whom  we  shall  be  concerned 
here,  expected  to  gratify  his  countrymen  by  offering  them 
something  "  anti-French,  anti-continental,  absolutely  original 
and  autonomous,"  and  quotes  him  as  saying,  "  In  Paris  I  first 
formed  the  idea  of  making  pictures  realistic  because  no 
Frenchman  did  so."  This  saying  notwithstanding,  I  doubt 
if  Madox  Brown  was  really  the  Chauvinist  that  the  French 
writer  alleges  him  to  have  been.  Certainly,  in  one  place, 
he  finds  fault  mth  French  art,  not  because  it  is  French,  but 
on  account  of  certain  specified  deficiencies.  "  The  Parisian 
ateliers,"  he  says,  "  I  always  entertained  the  greatest  aversion 
for.  Cold  pedantic  drawing  and  heavy  opaque  colour  are 
impartially  dispensed  to  all  in  those  huge  manufactories  of 
artists,  from  which,  however,  every  now  and  then  a  man  of 
feeling  or  genius  surges  up  and  disentangles  himself."  "We 
shall  see  later  that  it  was  against  precisely  this  state  of 
things  that  some  of  the  French  painters  of  the  mid- 
nineteenth  century  revolted.  But  if  we  hesitate  to  endorse 
an  accusation  of  crude  insular  prejudice  against  Ford  Madox 
Brown,  born  in  Calais  and  spending  the  early  part  of  his  life 
abroad,  must  not  the  charge  of  Chauvinism  be  transferred 


14  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  his  accuser,  a  Frenchman  who  apparently  can  only  think 
of  an  adverse  criticism  of  French  art  by  an  Englishman  as 
being  dictated  by  prejudice  % 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  Madox  Brown,  however,  we 
can  hardly  free  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  from  such  a  charge.  In 
the  course  of  his  reminiscences,  in  Pre-Raphaelitism  and  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,  he  says:  "All  manly  in  their 
vindication  of  virtue,  although  some  spoke  in  an  over- 
feminine  tone,  our  exemplars  in  letters  had  all  been  in 
accord  to  prune  English  imagination  of  unwholesome  foreign 
precedent,  tawdry  glitter,  and  theatrical  pomposity,  corrup- 
tions which  had  descended  from  the  attitudinisers  of  the 
two  earlier  reigns.  The  literary  reformers,  still  declaiming 
in  our  day,  had  already  revived  the  robust  interest  in 
humanity  exercised  by  British  men  of  genius  in  past 
centuries."  This  is  coming  very  near  to  saying  that  all 
the  virtues  are  British  and  all  the  vices  foreign;  and  Mr. 
Hunt  writes  about  art  in  the  same  strain.  "Hogarth, 
Reynolds,  Raeburn,  Gainsborough,  and  Eomney,"  he  says, 
"were  too  strong  to  be  suppressed,  and  they  produced  an 
art  that  was  pre-eminently  altogether  in  unison  with  the 
spirit  of  British  poetry,  healthy,  robust,  and  superior  to 
maudlin  sentimentality  and  vice  glamoured  over  with  fevered 
tears";  and  he  further  dilates  on  "the  glory  which,  since 
Hogarth,  English  painters  have  wrested  from  the  maws  of 
ignorance,  indifference,  and  shallow  self-confidence."  It  was 
perhaps  not  wholly  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  that  I  was 
not  going  to  invite  the  reader  to  sing  "Rule,  Britannia!"  If 
prejudice  so  vehemently  expressed  do  not  carry  with  it  its 
own  condemnation,  the  reader  will  find  that  a  quiet  con- 
sideration of  facts,  which  is  the  main  purpose  of  this  book, 
will  make  us  wish,  incidentally,  that  so  earnest  a  man  as 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

Mr.  Holman  Hunt  had  not  been  misled  into  a  great  in- 
justice. We  gain  nothing,  and  lose  much,  by  indiscriminate 
glorification  of  ourselves  and  depreciation  of  others.  We 
shall  find  an  entente  cordiale  useful  in  art  as  well  as  in 
politics.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  the  subsequent  pages  have 
been  written. 


i 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   PRE-RAPHAELITE   BROTHERHOOD 

TT  has  already  been  said  that  one  of  the  reasons  for  begm- 
-*-  ning  at  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  study 
of  painting  undertaken  in  this  book  is  that  the  Pre-Raphael- 
ite movement  arose  at  that  time.  The  movement  was  a 
revolt,  though  not  purposely  so  at  the  outset.  Perhaps  no 
revolts  ever  are;  revolutionaries  begin  simply  by  wanting 
more  of  their  own  way.  The  powers  that  be  will  not  let 
them  have  it.  They  insist ;  and  this  means  that  the  powers 
that  be  have  to  be  opposed.  In  art  the  established  authori- 
ties at  any  time  are  the  artists  who  are  wedded  to  a  particular 
style,  and  the  public  that  has  come  to  think  that  this  style 
is  the  only  right  one.  They  are  the  "  grave  copiers  of 
copies,"  and  the  admirers  of  such  copies.  The  revolution- 
aries are  the  artists  who,  somehow  or  other,  manage  to  throw 
aside  the  spectacles  of  tradition,  look  at  nature  and  life  with 
their  own  eyesight,  and  then  seek  to  paint  what  they 
see.  This  does  not  mean  that  tradition  is  wholly  cast  aside, 
or  that  the  artist  becomes  a  mere  machine  for  recording 
facts.  It  means  that  he  is  to  be  free  to  modify  tradition 
and  to  interpret  nature  and  life  in  accordance  with  his  own 
experience  and  temperament.  Any  one  who  did  not  know 
much  about  art  and  its  history  might  think  that  such  free- 
dom would  readily  be  granted.     The  fact  is  that  it  is  almost 

i6 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  17 

invariably  bitterly  resented  and  opposed.  The  battles  of  the 
orthodoxies  and  heresies  of  art  are  only  less  fierce  than 
those  of  the  orthodoxies  and  heresies  of  religion.  And 
there  is  in  both  spheres  the  same  tendency  to  go  to  absurd 
extremes. 

The  name  Pre-Raphaelite  appears  to  have  been  suggested 
by  Madox  Brown,  wlio  was  familiar  with  the  German 
Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  having  met  the  leaders  of  it, 
Cornelius  and  Overbeck,  in  Rome,  and  having  been  much 
impressed  by  the  men  and  their  work.  The  name  itself 
suggests  revolt  when  we  think  of  the  high  estimation  in 
which  Raphael  and  his  contemporaries  and  chief  followers 
were  then  held.  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  has  drawn  a  distinction 
between  Pre-Raphaelitism  and  Pre-Raphaelism.  He  and  his 
companions,  he  says,  had  no  lack  of  admiration  for  Raphael, 
at  least  in  part  of  his  work,  or  for  Michael  Angelo ;  it  was 
from  admiration  of  the  work  of  the  Raphaelites,  the  fol- 
lowers and  imitators  of  Raphael,  that  they  wished  to  disso- 
ciate themselves. 

Really,  if  we  were  to  accept  as  entirely  satisfactory  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt's  interpretation  of  the  movement,  the  name 
by  which  it  has  come  to  be  known  could  not  be  considered 
an  appropriate  one.  But  his  interpretation  is  too  narrow, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  accept  what  he  says  about  the  meaning 
put  upon  the  name.  According  to  him,  he  and  Millais  were 
the  only  true  Pre-Raphaelites  in  the  Brotherhood ;  and  he 
almost  seems  to  ask  us  to  think  of  himself  as  being,  in  a  few 
years,  the  only  one  deserving  the  name.  He  finds  fault  with 
Madox  Brown's  early  work  because  it  really  is  in  the  manner 
of  the  predecessors  of  Raphael;  Rossetti's  Girlhood nf  Mary 
Virgin  he  describes  as  being  Overbeckian  in  manner,  but 
"  completed  and  realised  with  that  Pre-Raphaelite  thorough- 
c 


i8  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

ness  which  it  could  not  have  reached  under  Brown's 
mediaeval  supervision."  That  is  to  say,  Pre-Kaphaelitism  did 
not  mean  medisevalism,  according  to  Mr.  Hunt,  but  only 
thoroughness,  elaboration  of  detail,  and  that  of  a  kind  not 
to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Raphael's  predecessors. 

The  truth  is  that  the  revolutionaries  were  only  united  in 
revolt.  They  could  not  have  agreed  upon  a  new  constitution 
for  art.  They  did  not  so  agree,  and  soon  went  each  his 
several  way.  The  movement  was  away  from  the  current 
theories  of  art,  but  it  was  not  towards  a  single,  clearly 
defined,  alternative  theory.  If  its  chief  promoters — Hunt, 
Millais,  and  Rossetti — started  out  together  in  one  direction, 
though  this  can  hardly  be  maintained,  Rossetti  was  soon  off 
in  another  direction ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  thorough- 
ness ceased  to  be  a  mark  of  Millais'  work.  The  cry  of  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt's  book,  Pre-Raphaelitism  and  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  Brotherhood,  is,  "  I,  even  I,  am  left  alone." 

It  must  not  be  assumed  that  there  was  no  re-aw^akening 
in  English  art  outside  the  Brotherhood  and  its  circle.  It 
will  be  convenient  for  us,  however,  to  confine  ourselves  at 
the  moment  to  the  organised  movement  and  the  work  of 
those  who  were  closely  associated  with  it,  if  not  formally 
members  of  the  Brotherhood. 

The  first  of  the  innovators,  in  priority  of  date,  was  Ford 
Madox  Brown.  The  real  leadership  of  the  movement  has 
often  been  attributed  to  him.  There  was,  however,  no 
single  leader,  because,  as  already  said,  there  was  no  single 
leading  idea,  or  clearly  defined  and  limited  group  of  ideas. 
The  importance  of  Madox  Brown's  influence  on  the  move- 
ment is,  however,  indisputable.  English  by  parentage,  he 
was  born  in  1821  at  Calais,  and  spent  most  of  his  early  life 
abroad.     Life  and  work  in  Belgium,  France,  and  Italy,  with 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  19 

occasional  sojourns  in  England,  is  the  record  until,  after  the 
death  of  his  wife  in  Paris,  he  settled  permanently  in  this 
country.  His  art-training  was  received  under  Gregorovius  at 
Bruges,  and  Baron  Wappers  at  Antwerp,  and,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  he  studied  in  France  and  Italy.  It  would 
have  been  impossible  for  him  simply  to  fall  into  line  with 
the  conventions  and  traditions  then  in  vogue  in  England. 
He  was  an  Englishman  who  approached  the  art  of  his 
country  from  the  outside.  The  master  who  most  influenced 
him  was  Baron  Wappers,  whose  style  M.  de  la  Sizeranne 
calls  Gothic,  which  means  not  Latin,  or  not  the  late  Latin 
of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  It  did  not  sub- 
ordinate forcible  expression  to  beauty.  Madox  Brown's 
style  is  nothing  if  not  forcible.  It  was  too  forcible  for 
Holman  Hunt's  liking,  at  least  more  so  than  he  thought 
likely  to  be  acceptable  to  the  British  public.  He  thought  it 
"grimly  grotesque,"  and  on  this  account,  amongst  others, 
was  opposed  to  Madox  Brown's  being  invited  to  become  a 
member  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood. 

Among  the  earliest  of  Madox  Brown's  works  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  future  members  of  the  Brotherhood  were 
the  cartoons  he  executed  in  connexion  with  the  competitions 
for  the  decoration  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  One  of 
these  cartoons,  executed  in  Paris  in  1843,  and  exhibited  at 
Westminster  in  the  following  year,  represented  the  body  of 
Harold  being  brought  before  William  the  Conqueror  after 
the  battle  of  Hastings — an  incident,  it  should  be  said,  that 
has  no  historical  foundation.  It  is  quite  to  our  purpose  to 
quote  his  own  description  of  this  cartoon.  "  Excessive  and 
exuberant  joy,"  he  says,  "  is  described  by  the  old  chronicles 
as  possessing  the  Norman  host  after  the  victory.  This  is 
shown  variously  in  the  demeanour  and  expressions  of  the 


20  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

conquerors.  Harold  was  a  more  than  usually  large  and 
athletic  man,  even  among  Saxon  heroes.  Three  men  bear 
his  body  to  the  victorious  Duke.  All  that  are  left  alive  on 
the  scene  are  Normans — no  prisoners  were  taken.  Quarter 
was  neither  expected  nor  given.  One  ancient  knight,  some- 
what of  the  Polonius  kind,  with  raised  hand,  seems  to  say, 
'Here  indeed  was  a  man.  In  my  young  days,'  etc.  etc. 
Others  seem  of  the  same  mind.  One  of  William's  atten- 
dants, of  the  waggish  sort,  catches  a  silly  camp-boy  by  the 
fist  and  exhibits  its  puny  proportions  alongside  of  the  dead 
Harold's  hand,  still  with  the  broken  battle-axe  in  its  iron 
grasp,  drawing  a  grim  smile  from  the  Conqueror.  A  fair- 
haired  Norman  officer,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  his  body  is 
gashed  pretty  freely  with  wounds,  twists  about  to  get  a  sight 
of  Harold.  The  monk  who  is  dressing  his  wounds,  tired 
out  with  much  of  such  work,  surlily  bids  him  to  be  quiet. 
Friends  join  hands,  glad  to  meet  again  after  such  a  day.  A 
father  supports  his  wounded  son.  In  one  corner,  embraced 
in  death-grapple,  lie  the  bodies  of  a  Norman  and  Saxon; 
one  has  stabbed  the  other  in  the  back,  while  he  in  turn  has 
bitten  his  adversary's  throat  like  a  dog.  Beachy  Head, 
which  is  just  perceptible  from  the  scene  of  the  battle, 
appears  across  the  bay  in  the  extreme  distance.  The  effect 
is  after  sunset." 

It  is  evident  from  this  description  that  Madox  Brown — 
and  this  is  true  of  all  his  works — vividly  imagined  the  scene 
to  be  represented,  even  to  small  details,  and  entered — the 
dramatist's  privilege — into  the  thoughts  and  emotions  of 
those  who  took  part  in  it.  Then,  what  he  had  thus  seen  he 
set  forth  with  unflinching  fidelity.  The  close  of  a  battle 
must  be  a  horrible  scene,  and  here,  after  sundown  on  this 
English  hill-side,  at  the  end  of  one  of  the  most  memorable 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  21 

fights  in  our  history,  one  of  its  great  turning-points,  we  sup 
full  with  horrors. 

AVhen  Holman  Hunt  saw  this  cartoon,  he  thought  the 
drawing  robust  and  nervous,  the  costiune  treated  with  manly 
taste,  giving  actuality  to  the  historic  scene,  and  the  colour 
honest  and  acceptable,  and  although  without  mysterious 
charm  of  hue,  altogether  appropriate  and  sound.  He 
thought  that  tlie  painter  was  glaringly  unreasonable  in 
making  William  wear  round  his  neck  the  saints'  bones  over 
which  Harold  had  made  his  renunciation  of  the  crown; 
and  he  did  not  like  the  biting  and  dagger  incident.  Here 
came  in  the  grimly  grotesque. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  on  the  treatment  by  Madox  Brown 
of  an  historical  subject,  because,  in  his  zeal  for  vivid  and 
detailed  dramatic  representation,  he  shows  himself  clearly 
of  the  same  race  as  Hogarth;  yet,  as  his  grandson,  Mr. 
Ford  Hueffer,  says,  "He  was  then  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses a  foreigner,  and  as  such  he  regarded  himself  during 
the  short  stay  in  England  whilst  he  was  actually  executing 
his  cartoons  and  before  his  journey  to  Italy." 

The  journey  to  Italy,  which  was  made  in  1845,  had  for 
one  result,  as  we  have  already  seen,  an  awakening  of  in- 
terest in  the  painters  who  preceded  Raphael  and  their 
modern  followers,  the  Germans,  Overbeck  and  Cornelius. 
He  returned  to  England  ambitious  of  painting,  in  honour 
of  English  poets,  pictures  which  should  be  as  inspired  and 
inspiring  as  those  of  the  Italian  masters ;  and  the  first  two 
pictures  he  painted  after  his  return — Chaucer  at  the  Court 
of  Edward  III  and  WycUffe  reading  his  Translation  of  the 
Bible  to  John  of  Gaunt — were  not  only  done  in  pursuance 
of  this  desire,  but  were  early  Italian  in  manner,  groups  of 
figures  being  symmetrically  balanced,  one  by  another,  and 


22  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

enclosed  within  Gothic  arches.  The  pictures  were  architec- 
tonic in  design.  According  to  Holman  Hunt,  this  Pre- 
Eaphaelitism  was  not  Pre-Raphaelite  in  the  modern  sense ; 
it  did  not  eschew  the  conventional  in  contemporary  art; 
there  was  nothing  in  it  indicative  of  a  child-like  reversion 
from  existing  schools  to  nature  herself. 

Let  us  leave  Madox  Brown  for  a  time  and  turn  to 
Holman  Hunt,  who  was  his  junior  by  seven  years,  having 
been  born,  the  son  of  a  London  warehouseman,  in  1827. 
The  story  has  often  been  told  how,  against  his  father's  wish, 
he  persisted  in  his  determination  to  become  a  painter. 
Then,  at  a  third  attempt,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  he  was 
admitted  as  a  probationer  in  the  Royal  Academy  Schools. 

A  clue  to  much  that  is  distinctive  in  his  art,  and  in  his 
theories  of  art,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that,  until  quite 
recently,  he  has  always  had  unusually  keen  eyesight.  On 
one  occasion  he  astonished  a  friend  in  Jerusalem  by  proving 
to  him  that  he  could  see  the  satellites  of  Jupiter  with  the 
naked  eye.  The  friend  doubted  his  statement  that  he  could 
thus  see  them ;  so,  after  he  had  noted  down  their  positions 
on  a  piece  of  paper,  they  went  to  the  house  of  another 
friend  who  had  a  telescope ;  and  the  moons  were  found  to 
be  exactly  in  the  positions  in  which  he  had  noted  them. 
He  has  seen  the  world  as  perhaps  few  other  artists  have 
seen  it,  in  minute  detail;  and  it  has  always,  he  has  said, 
been  a  pleasure  to  him  to  represent  it  as  he  has  seen  it. 
I  have  already  quoted  a  critic  who  spoke  of  his  near-sighted 
inquisitiveness.  He  says  himself  that  on  one  occasion 
Madox  Brown  indulged  in  "playful  irony  upon  what  he 
termed  my  *  microscopic  detail.' "  Was  it  any  more  play- 
ful irony  than  Hunt's  description  of  Brown's  work  as  grimly 
grotesque  %     Probably  he  was  not  aware  how  exceptional  his 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  23 

eyesight  was — I  have  heard  him  say  that  he  did  not  know 
if  it  were  exceptional — and  he  would  not  know,  therefore, 
that  he  represented  things  quite  otherwise  than  they  would 
look  to  the  majority  of  people. 

Knowing  of  this  physical  peculiarity,  we  can  understand 
his  saying  of  himself  as  a  student  that  "  without  any  idea 
of  '  forming  a  school '  but  for  his  own  development  alone, 
he  began  to  study  with  exceptional  care  and  frankness  those 
features  of  nature  which  were  generally  slurred  over  as  un- 
worthy attention;  and  for  this  purpose  he  found  most 
timely  encouragement  in  the  enthusiastic  outburst  of 
Ruskin's  appeal  to  nature  in  all  vital  qualities  of  art  criti- 
cism as  expressed  by  him  in  'Modern  Painters.'"  Were 
the  details  slurred  over,  or  were  they  simply  not  seen  by 
painters  who  had  not  his  ''microscopic  eye"?  None  of  us 
knows  exactly  how  others  see  the  world.  Has  Holman 
Hunt's  whole  practice  and  theory  of  art  been  adapted  only 
for  the  needs  of  himself  and  a  few  other  exceptional 
people?  Certainly  many  people,  the  present  writer  and 
every  one  with  whom  he  has  discussed  the  matter  included, 
do  not  see  things  as  it  is  evident  from  his  paintings  Mr. 
Hunt  has  seen  them. 

Whether  or  not  we  attribute  Holman  Hunt's  theory  of 
the  relation  of  art  to  nature  to  his  exceptional  eyesight,  or 
merely  think  that  his  keen  vision  led  to  an  extreme  applica- 
tion of  an  independently  adopted  theory,  the  theory  and  the 
keen  vision  together,  by  occasioning  an  unusual  interest  in 
minute  detail,  have  resulted  in  his  paintings,  less,  perhaps, 
than  those  of  almost  any  other  artist,  making  allowance  for 
the  stereoscopic  action  of  our  eyesight.  We  have  two  eyes ; 
we  see  from  two  distinct  though  not  widely  separate  points 
of  view.     Upon  anything  at  which  we  particularly  wish  to 


24  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

look  the  eyes  focus  themselves  so  that  we  get  only  one  pic- 
ture of  it.  Of  all  other  things  not  in  the  same  plane  we 
get  two  pictures,  or,  we  may  say,  a  blurred  picture.  Holman 
Hunt  has  painted  his  pictures  as  if  we  could  see  all  objects, 
both  near  and  distant,  with  equal  and  remarkable  clearness 
at  any  given  moment.  Hence  the  unreally  hard  look  of  his 
work  that  is  so  often  commented  upon. 

It  will  be  found  by  experiment  that  this  hardness  is 
greatly  diminished  if  the  pictures  be  looked  at  with  one 
eye  only.  This  holds  good  for  any  representation  on  a  flat 
surface  of  objects  at  different  distances  from  the  eye.  In- 
stinctively, when  looking  with  both  eyes,  we  expect  the 
blurring  of  all  objects  except  those  on  the  same  plane  as 
the  one  at  which  we  are  particularly  looking ;  and  we  miss 
this  effect  in  a  picture  in  Avhich  all  objects  are  distinctly 
painted.  Using  one  eye  only,  we  instinctively  do  not  ex- 
pect this  effect,  do  not  miss  it  in  the  picture ;  and  differences 
of  size  and  tone  then  convey  to  us  a  much  stronger  impres- 
sion of  varying  distance.  If  such  pictures  of  Holman 
Hunt's  as  Rienzi,  May  Morning^  and  Magdalen  Tower  be 
looked  at  with  both  eyes,  the  sky,  painted  as  it  is  seen  when 
the  eyes  are  focussed  upon  it,  looks  hard,  and  but  little  if 
at  all  beyond  buildings,  trees,  or  figures.  Use  one  eye  only, 
and  it  at  once  gets  away  far  beyond  them.  So  in  his  water- 
colour  drawings  of  the  Holy  Land,  the  confusion  of  planes 
disappears  entirely  if  they  are  looked  at  with  only  one  eye. 
The  opposite  of  all  this  is  true.  If  we  look  at  actual 
objects  with  only  one  eye,  there  is  at  once  a  confusion  of 
planes  ;  we  miss  the  stereoscopic — in  plain  English,  "  solid- 
looking  "  effect,  to  which  we  are  accustomed. 

The  hard  effect  of  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  pictures  has  often 
been  attributed  to  his  painting  with  equal  definition  the 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  25 

objects  ill  every  part  of  them.  In  looking  at  actual  objects 
we  do  not  see  clearly  those  to  right  and  left  of,  and  above 
and  below,  the  one  upon  which  our  eyes  are  fixed.  But  this 
is  at  least  almost  equally  true,  as  experiment  can  at  once 
show,  with  regard  to  the  objects  in  even  a  small  picture  or 
photograph  held  comparatively  close  to  the  eyes.  It  is  the 
equal  clearness  of  objects  on  different  planes,  not  of  those 
on  the  same  plane,  which,  with  the  elaboration  of  detail  due 
to  his  extraordinary  clearness  of  vision,  produces  in  his 
pictures  an  effect  such  as  we  never  see  in  looking  at  things 
themselves. 

What  are  we  to  say  about  this  %  First,  that  if  the  con- 
veying of  information  about  objects  as  they  are  were  the 
end  of  painting,  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  pictures  would  have  to 
take  their  place  in  the  very  front  rank  of  art.  In  the  works 
of  no  other  painter  can  we  learn  so  much  about  what  is 
represented  in  them.  It  is  really  quite  interesting  to  ex- 
amine his  pictures  closely,  bit  by  bit ;  and  it  is  difficult  to 
see  why  we  should  not  have  this  pleasure,  if  it  be  obtained 
at  the  sacrifice  of  nothing  else.  But  truth  of  appearance  is 
sacrificed?  Then  we  get  one  kind  of  truth  from  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt,  and  can  look  to  other  painters  for  other 
kinds.  Is  there  not  sacrifice  of  beauty  ?  Not  necessarily. 
A  stained-glass  window,  containing  representations  of  figures 
and  landscape,  takes  no  note  of  stereoscopic  vision,  of  planes 
and  values,  and  yet  may  be  exquisitely  beautiful.  So  with 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  pictures  :  they  may  be  beautiful  in 
design  and  colour ;  they  may  be  even  more  beautiful  than 
those  that  seek  to  represent  the  mere  appearance  of  things 
more  accurately  than  he  does.  The  questions  we  have  been 
discussing  are,  in  fact,  scientific,  not  aesthetic. 

The  reader  may,  however,  be  of  those  who  do  feel  the 


26  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Pre-Raphaelite  leader's  pictures  to  be  wanting  in  beauty ; 
and  it  may  be  that  such  feeling  is  not  always — though 
assuredly  it  often  is — due  to  pre-occupation  with  beauty  of 
one  kind.  We  shall,  perhaps,  find  the  explanation  in  Mr. 
Hunt's  theory  of  the  relation  of  art  to  nature.  We  have 
seen  him  approving  of  Buskin's  "appeal  to  nature  in  all 
vital  questions  of  art  criticism."  He  says  that  he  himself 
was  an  earnest  young  student  "who,  already  feeling  his 
way  as  a  practical  painter,  was  led  by  circumstances  to  study 
in  exceptional  degree  the  works  of  the  greatest  old  masters, 
and  he  perceived  that  in  every  school  progress  ended  when 
the  pupils  derived  their  manner  through  dogmas  evolved 
from  artists'  systems  rather  than  from  principles  of  design 
taught  by  nature  herself.  He  determined,  therefore,  for  his 
own  part,  to  disregard  all  the  arbitrary  rules  in  vogue  in  ex- 
isting schools,  and  to  seek  his  own  road  in  art  by  that  patient 
study  of  nature  on  which  the  great  masters  had  founded 
their  sweetness  and  strength  of  style."  How  he  set  himself 
to  work  out  this  theory  we  may  learn  from  a  statement  of 
his  own  regarding  his  picture  The  Hireling  Shejpherd.  In 
a  letter  to  the  present  writer,  he  said  :  "  My  first  object  as  an 
artist  was  to  paint,  not  Dresden  china  hergers,  but  a  real 
shepherd,  and  a  real  shepherdess,  and  a  landscape  in  full 
sunlight,  with  all  the  colour  of  luscious  summer,  without 
the  faintest  fear  of  any  landscape  painters  who  had  rendered 
nature  before." 

There  are  probably  few  people  sufficiently  interested  in 
the  subject  to  give  it  serious  thought  who  do  not  think  that 
this  picture  would  have  been  more  beautiful  had  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt  paid,  more  regard  to  precedent.  Nature  may 
teach  design,  but  she  only  carries  the  teaching  part  way; 
the   pupil  must  go  to  a  finishing  school — perhaps  he  had 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  27 

better  have  other  teachers  as  well  as  nature  all  the  time — if 
his  education  is  to  be  complete.  And  if  and  when  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt's  pictures  are  wanting  in  beauty,  it  is  chiefly 
because  he  has  trusted  too  much  to  nature  as  a  teacher  of 
design.  Not  that  he  could  wholly  escape  from  precedent. 
His  art  is  better  than  his  creed.  In  this  very  picture  it  is 
where  he  abandons  his  creed  that  design  enters,  as  in 
the  determination  of  the  positions  of  the  sheep  and  of  the 
trees  so  as  to  form  lines  that  will  lead  up  to  the  figures  and 
harmonise  with  their  bounding  lines.  If  and  when  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt's  pictures  fail  in  beauty,  it  is  because  more  or 
less  of  the  recorded  fact  escapes  from  his  design :  the  pic- 
ture is  not  an  aesthetic  whole.  To  adapt  what  the  curate 
said  about  his  egg,  the  picture  is  only  good  in  parts.  This 
is  especially  true  with  regard  to  colour ;  there  is  often  much 
beautiful  harmonising  of  colour  as  well  as  loveliness  of  indi- 
vidual tints ;  but  often  no  colour-scheme  runs  through  the 
whole  picture.  He  says  of  Millais  and  himself :  "  We  dis- 
tinctly enforced  our  aesthetic  aims  in  the  themes  we  treated, 
selecting  beautiful  objects  for  fastidious  discrimination  in 
their  portrayal."  "VVe  may  accept  this  statement  and  yet 
see  that  such  a  course  would  not  necessarily  result  in  the 
production  of  a  beautiful  work  of  art.  The  various  beauti- 
ful objects  must  not  only  be  fastidiously  portrayed,  they 
must  be  brought  into  beautiful  relation  with  each  other, 
and  to  this  end  they  must  be  carefully  selected ;  and  even 
then  the  individual  character  of  some  of  them  may  have  to 
be  modified  if  the  total  result  is  to  be  beautiful. 

Again,  Mr.  Hunt  says  :  "  Pre-Raphaelitism  in  its  purity 
was  the  frank  worship  of  nature,  kept  in  check  by  selection 
and  directed  by  the  spirit  of  imaginative  purpose."  Yes ; 
but  the  question  has  still  to  be  asked,  In  what  proportion 


28  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

were  these  elements  mixed  %  There  have  been  many  schools 
of  art,  by  no  means  Pre-Eaphaelite,  in  Mr.  Hunt's  use  of 
the  term,  to  which  this  definition  would  apply.  Mr.  Hunt 
mixed  the  elements  to  his  own  liking.  He  seems  to  have 
got  Millais  to  like  the  same  mixture,  though  Millais'  taste 
changed  before  very  long.  Dante  Rossetti,  the  third  work- 
ing member  of  tlie  Brotherhood,  adopted  different  propor- 
tions from  the  first.  Madox  Brown,  whom  we  have  left  for 
a  time,  had  his  own  prescription  for  a  while,  tried  Holman 
Hunt's  afterwards,  and  then  varied  it  again.  Mr.  Hunt 
says  in  his  book :  "It  is  stultifying  in  writing  a  history  of 
Pre-Raphaelitism  to  be  compelled  to  avow  that  our  impul- 
sively-formed Brotherhood  was  a  tragic  failure  almost  from 
the  beginning,  and  that  we  became  the  victims  of  the  indis- 
cretions of  our  allies."  The  members  of  the  Brotherhood 
were  Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  Dante  Rossetti,  James  CoUin- 
son,  F.  G.  Stephens — these  live  were  painters ;  Thomas 
Woolner,  a  sculptor,  and  William  Michael  Rossetti,  a  writer. 
When  Mr.  Hunt  says  "  we  "  lie  means  Millais  and  himself. 
*  Our  allies  "  were  the  other  five.  Collinson  soon  left  the 
Brotherhood ;  Stephens  did  little  actual  work.  The  mem- 
bers were  never  agreed  in  theory.  The  very  epithet  Pre- 
Raphaelite  was  a  misnomer  for  the  work  of  Holman  Hunt 
and  Millais.  Mr.  Hunt  says  that  there  was  nothing  anti- 
quarian or  quattrocentist  about  the  movement.  Why,  then, 
call  it  Pre-Raphaelite?  Raphael  and  his  predecessors  cer- 
tainly never  made  a  sudden  breach  with  precedent  and  a 
return  to  Nature  spelt  with  a  capital  N.  There  was  some- 
thing antiquarian  and  quattrocentist  in  the  work  of  Madox 
Brown  and  Dante  Rossetti,  and  in  the  theories  of  Stephens 
and  AVilliam  Rossetti ;  and  they  are  certainly  more  entitled 
to  use  the  term  Pre-Raphaelite  than  the  other  two,  whose 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  29 

work  would  have  been  better  described  simply  as  Naturalist. 
This  is  not  a  mere  wrangling  about  terms.  These  differ- 
ences are  important  with  reference  to  the  after  history  of 
English  painting.  Each  of  the  parties  in  the  Brotherhood 
had  its  allies,  and  afterwards  its  followers ;  and  the  influence 
of  each  persists  to  the  present  day.  Also,  entirely  outside 
the  Brotherhood  and  its  circle,  there  were  painters  from 
whom  the  Pre-Raphaelites  themselves  might  have  learned 
valuable  lessons.     Of  all  this  hereafter. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  well  now  to  say  something  about 
Ruskin's  theories  of  art,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  entirely 
fell  in  with  those  that  Holman  Hunt  was  working  out  for 
himself,  and  confirmed  him  in  his  determination  to  adopt 
them  in  practice.  Nature  was  in  the  forefront  of  all  Ruskin 
had  to  say  about  art.  His  first  nom  de  plume  was  Kata 
I*husin,  "  according  to  nature."  On  the  title-page  of  each 
volume  of  Modern  Painters  are  Wordsworth's  lines  : 

Accuse  me  not 

Of  arrogance 

If,  having  walked  with  Nature, 

And  ottered,  far  as  frailty  would  allow, 

Jly  heart  a  daily  sacrifice  to  Truth, 

I  now  affirm  of  Nature  and  of  Truth, 

Whom  I  have  served,  that  their  Divinity 

Revolts,  offended  at  the  ways  of  men, 

Philosophers,  who,  though  the  human  soul 

Be  of  a  thousand  faculties  composed, 

And  twice  ten  thousand  interests,  do  yet  prize 

This  soul,  and  the  transcendent  universe. 

No  more  than  as  a  mirror  that  reflects 

To  proud  Self-love  her  own  intelligence. 

It  is  instructive  to  note  here  that  Rossetti  said  of  Words- 
worth that  he  was  too  much  the  high-priest  of  nature  to  be 
her  lover.  It  may  also  be  said  that  whether  or  not  Nature 
and  Truth  have  revolted  at  the  ways  of  men,  men  have 


30  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

often  felt  inclined,  at  least,  to  revolt  against  the  ways  of 
nature ;  and  man  has  only  risen  above  the  brute  by  making 
all  kinds  of  improvements  upon  the  things  with  which 
nature  has  provided  him.  Of  course,  we  may  say  that 
nature  is  made  better  by  no  means  that  nature  herself  does 
not  provide ;  only,  if  we  do  say  this,  we  must  also  say  that 
the  widest  departures  from  nature,  by  which  art  creates  a 
beauty  of  its  own,  are  themselves  natural. 

Why  did  Ruskin  put  this  quotation  from  Wordsworth 
in  the  forefront  of  each  volume  of  his  great  apology  for 
Turner?  Because  he  himself  had  humbly  walked  with 
nature  as  a  geologist  and  botanist.  His  earliest  writing  of 
any  moment  was  on  these  subjects ;  and  his  interest  in  art 
was  largely  scientific — that  is  to  say,  he  strongly  emphasised 
the  importance  of  fidelity  to  facts.  What  was  his  appeal  to 
nature  in  all  vital  questions  of  art  criticism,  in  which 
Holman  Hunt  found  such  timely  encouragement?  We 
shall  find  it  in  the  first  volume  of  Modern  Painters ;  and 
I  venture  to  quote  once  more  an  oft-quoted  passage.  Before 
doing  so,  however,  let  me  remind  the  reader  that  the  first 
volume  of  Modern  Painters  was  published  in  1843,  when 
the  author  had  only  reached  the  age  of  twenty-four; 
that  he  was  not  himself  strictly  an  artist,  as,  although  he 
was  an  exquisite  draughtsman,  he  never  showed  any  faculty 
for  design ;  just  as,  though  he  wrote  magnificent  prose,  his 
verse  was  never  more  than  respectable.  This  is  the  oft- 
quoted  passage : — 

"From  young  artists  nothing  ought  to  be  tolerated  but 
simple  bona  fide  imitation  of  nature.  They  have  no  busi- 
ness to  ape  the  execution  of  masters;  to  utter  weak  and 
disjointed  repetitions  of  other  men's  words,  and  mimic  the 
gestures  of  the  preacher  without  understanding  his  meaning 


THE  IRE-RAPHAEUTE  BROTHERHOOD  31 

or  sharing  in  his  emotions.  We  do  not  want  their  crude 
ideas  of  composition,  their  unformed  conceptions  of  the 
Beautiful,  their  unsystematised  experiments  upon  the  Sub- 
lime. We  scorn  their  velocity,  for  it  is  without  direction  ; 
we  reject  their  decision,  for  it  is  without  grounds ;  we  re- 
probate their  choice,  for  it  is  without  comparison.  Their 
duty  is  neither  to  choose,  nor  compose,  nor  imagine,  nor 
experimentalise ;  but  to  be  humble  and  earnest  in  following 
the  steps  of  nature,  and  tracing  the  finger  of  God.  No- 
thing is  so  bad  a  symptom  in  the  work  of  young  artists  as 
too  much  dexterity  of  handling,  for  it  is  a  sign  that  they 
are  satisfied  with  their  work  and  have  tried  to  do  nothing 
more  than  they  were  able  to  do.  Their  work  should  be  full 
of  failures,  for  these  are  the  signs  of  efforts.  They  should 
keep  to  quiet  colours,  greys  and  browns;  and  making  the 
early  works  of  Turner  their  example,  as  his  latest  are  to  be 
their  object  of  emulation,  should  go  to  nature  in  all  single- 
ness of  heart,  and  walk  with  her  laboriously  and  trustingly, 
having  no  other  thoughts  but  how  best  to  penetrate  her 
meaning,  and  remember  her  instruction — rejecting  nothing, 
selecting  nothing,  and  scorning  nothing ;  believing  all  things 
to  be  right  and  good,  and  rejoicing  always  in  the  truth." 

We  halt  here,  but  will  finish  the  passage  shortly.  It  will 
be  observed  that  if  the  young  artist  take  Ruskin's  advice,  he 
will  begin  as  a  mere  imitator  of  nature.  That  is  to  say, 
he  will  begin  by  not  practising  art,  for  mere  imitation  is  not 
art.  Is  it  not  likely,  then,  that  he  will  end  more  or  less  as 
he  has  begun  1  Hamerton  took  Ruskin's  advice  and  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  was  bad ;  that  mere  imitation  of  nature 
was  not  at  all  the  right  way  to  learn  the  practice  of  art. 
Holman  Hunt  took  the  advice ;  but  his  case  is  not  a  com- 
plete test,  for  he  had  already  painted  pictures  in  accordance 


34  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

country,  he  could  live  in  London,  is  in  itself  sufficient  evi- 
dence that  his  mind  had  never  been  overwhelmed  by  nature 
to  the  point  of  sacrificing  its  human  liberty  and  indivi- 
duality." Hamerton  says  also  that  Wordsworth  was  saved 
by  his  interest  in  humanity  from  being  wholly  conquered  by 
natural  landscape,  but  that  his  emancipation  would  have 
been  more  complete  if  he  had  understood  the  art  of  painting. 
There  is  no  need  for  me  to  attempt  to  decide  between 
these  different  pomts  of  view.  I  have  no  desire  to  give 
a  recipe  :  so  much  nature  to  so  much  art.  I  have  merely  to 
show  that  art,  in  its  development  during  the  last  fifty  years, 
has  refused  to  be  limited  to  the  Pre-Raphaelite  recipe  as  un- 
derstood by  Ruskin  and  Holman  Hunt;  at  the  same  time, 
I  am  far  from  saying  that  their  recipe  had  not  its  value, 
only  it  was  not  an  exclusively  valuable  one. 

I  only  quoted  part  of  the  passage  in  Modern  Painters 
that  contains  Ruskin's  advice  to  young  painters.  The  con- 
clusion of  it  is  as  follows  :— "Then"— after  going  to  nature 
in  all  singleness  of  heart,  and  walking  with  her  laboriously 
and  trustingly—"  when  their  memories  are  stored,  and  their 
imaginations  fed,  and  their  hands  firm,  let  them  take  up  the 
scarlet  and  the  gold,  give  the  reins  to  their  fancy,  and  show 
us  what  their  heads  are  made  of.  We  will  follow  them 
wherever  they  choose  to  lead ;  we  will  check  at  nothing ; 
they  are  then  our  masters,  and  are  fit  to  be  so.  They  have 
placed  themselves  above  our  criticism,  and  we  will  listen  to 
their  words  in  aU  faith  and  humility ;  but  not  unless  they 
themselves  have  before  bowed,  in  the  same  submission,  to 
a  higher  Authority  and  Master."  If  any  young  painter  ever 
took  Ruskin's  advice  with  regard  to  fidelity  to  nature,  it  was 
Millais;  yet  we  shall  find  hereafter  that  when,  in  later 
years,  Millais  began  to  paint  in  a  manner  that  Ruskin  did 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  35 

not  like,  Ruskin  by  no  means  thought  him  above  criticism 
because  of  his  earlier  bowing  to  a  higher  Authority  and 
Master.  Still,  of  course,  Millais  may  have  become  a  fallen 
angel  of  art ;  Ruskin  said,  indeed,  that  his  change  was  not 
mere  fall,  but  catastrophe. 

We  shall  have  to  consider  this  change  in  a  later  chapter. 
Here,  in  connexion  with  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood, 
we  are  concerned  with  Millais  as,  for  the  time,  agreeing  in 
theory  and  practice  with  Holman  Hunt.  They  adopted  the 
same  principle,  painting  the  landscape  and  other  surround- 
ings of  their  figures  on  the  spot,  with  great  elaboration  of 
detail,  and  with  little  or  no  allowance  for  the  blurring 
of  objects  on  other  planes  than  that  of  the  object  upon 
which  the  eyes  were  focussed. 

The  third  working  member  of  the  Brotherhood  was  Dante 
Rossetti,  who  had  Italian  blood  in  his  veins,  was  poet  as 
well  as  painter,  and  of  whom  the  last  thing  that  can  be 
said  is  that  he  walked  humbly  with  nature.  If  the  success 
of  the  Brotherhood  depended  upon  his  adopting  the  methods 
of  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais,  there  can  be  no  wonder  that 
it  was  a  failure,  even  a  tragic  one.  He  had  been  a  pupil  of 
Madox  Brown's,  to  whom  he  had  been  attracted  by  the 
Westminster  cartoons,  and  had  been  set  to  paint  pickle-jars 
by  way  of  discipline  in  art.  Such  humble  drudgery  as  this 
was  not  to  his  liking,  and  he  soon  chose  another  master — 
Holman  Hunt — who  set  him  to  work  on  the  still-life  objects 
in  a  subject-picture.  The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin,  This 
picture,  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  says,  '*  was  of  Overbeck  revivalist 
character,  which  no  superintendence  of  mine  as  to  the  man- 
ner of  painting  could  much  afifect " ;  and  of  Rossetti's  next 
picture,  The  Annunciation^  generally  known  as  Ecce  Ancilla 
Domini,  he  says  that  it  "  still  reflected  Brown's  early  Cliris- 


34  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

country,  he  could  live  in  London,  is  in  itself  sufficient  evi- 
dence that  his  mind  had  never  been  overwhelmed  by  nature 
to  the  point  of  sacrificing  its  human  liberty  and  indivi- 
duality." Hamerton  says  also  that  Wordsworth  was  saved 
by  his  interest  in  humanity  from  being  wholly  conquered  by 
natural  landscape,  but  that  his  emancipation  would  have 
been  more  complete  if  he  had  understood  the  art  of  painting. 

There  is  no  need  for  me  to  attempt  to  decide  between 
these  different  points  of  view.  I  have  no  desire  to  give 
a  recipe  :  so  much  nature  to  so  much  art.  I  have  merely  to 
show  that  art,  in  its  development  during  the  last  fifty  years, 
has  refused  to  be  limited  to  the  Pre-Raphaelite  recipe  as  un- 
derstood by  Ruskin  and  Holman  Hunt ;  at  the  same  time, 
I  am  far  from  saying  that  their  recipe  had  not  its  value, 
only  it  was  not  an  exclusively  valuable  one. 

I  only  quoted  part  of  the  passage  in  Modern  Painters 
that  contains  Ruskin's  advice  to  young  painters.  The  con- 
clusion of  it  is  as  follows  : — "  Then  " — after  going  to  nature 
in  all  singleness  of  heart,  and  walking  with  her  laboriously 
and  trustingly — "  when  their  memories  are  stored,  and  their 
imaginations  fed,  and  their  hands  firm,  let  them  take  up  the 
scarlet  and  the  gold,  give  the  reins  to  their  fancy,  and  show 
us  what  their  heads  are  made  of.  We  will  follow  them 
wherever  they  choose  to  lead ;  we  will  check  at  nothing ; 
they  are  then  our  masters,  and  are  fit  to  be  so.  They  have 
placed  themselves  above  our  criticism,  and  we  will  listen  to 
their  words  in  all  faith  and  humility ;  but  not  unless  they 
themselves  have  before  bowed,  in  the  same  submission,  to 
a  higher  Authority  and  Master."  If  any  young  painter  ever 
took  Ruskin's  advice  with  regard  to  fidelity  to  nature,  it  was 
Millais ;  yet  we  shall  find  hereafter  that  when,  in  later 
years,  Millais  began  to  paint  in  a  manner  that  Ruskin  did 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  35 

not  like,  Ruskin  by  no  means  thought  him  above  criticism 
because  of  his  earlier  bowing  to  a  higher  Authority  and 
Master.  Still,  of  course,  Millais  may  have  become  a  fallen 
angel  of  art ;  Ruskin  said,  indeed,  that  his  change  was  not 
mere  fall,  but  catastrophe. 

We  shall  have  to  consider  this  change  in  a  later  chapter. 
Here,  in  connexion  with  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood, 
we  are  concerned  with  Millais  as,  for  the  time,  agreeing  in 
theory  and  practice  with  Holman  Hunt.  They  adopted  the 
same  principle,  painting  the  landscape  and  other  surround- 
ings of  their  figures  on  the  spot,  with  great  elaboration  of 
detail,  and  with  little  or  no  allowance  for  the  blurring 
of  objects  on  other  planes  than  that  of  the  object  upon 
which  the  eyes  were  focussed. 

The  third  working  member  of  the  Brotherhood  was  Dante 
Rossetti,  who  had  Italian  blood  in  his  veins,  was  poet  as 
well  as  painter,  and  of  whom  the  last  thing  that  can  be 
said  is  that  he  walked  humbly  with  nature.  If  the  success 
of  the  Brotherhood  depended  upon  his  adopting  the  methods 
of  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais,  there  can  be  no  wonder  that 
it  was  a  failure,  even  a  tragic  one.  He  had  been  a  pupil  of 
Madox  Brown's,  to  whom  he  had  been  attracted  by  the 
Westminster  cartoons,  and  had  been  set  to  paint  pickle-jars 
by  way  of  discipline  in  art.  Such  humble  drudgery  as  this 
was  not  to  his  liking,  and  he  soon  chose  another  master — 
Holman  Hunt — who  set  him  to  work  on  the  still-life  objects 
in  a  subject-picture.  The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin.  This 
picture,  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  says,  "  was  of  Overbeck  revivalist 
character,  which  no  superintendence  of  mine  as  to  the  man- 
ner of  painting  could  much  affect " ;  and  of  Rossetti's  next 
picture.  The  Annunciation^  generally  known  as  Ecee  Ancilla 
Domini^  he  says  that  it  "  still  reflected  Brown's  early  Cliris- 


36  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

tian  phase  " ;  and  lie  says  generally,  "  Kossetti  treated  the 
Gospel  history  simply  as  a  storehouse  of  interesting  situa- 
tions and  beautiful  personages  for  the  artist's  pencil,  just  as 
the  Arthurian  legends  afterwards  were  to  him,  and  in  due 
course  to  his  younger  proselytes  at  Oxford."  This  is  by  no 
means  accurate,  but  it  serves  to  show  that  there  was  an  ini- 
tial difference  between  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  on  the  one 
hand  and  Rossetti  on  the  other  as  to  the  relation  of  art  to 
nature — a  difference  that  became  greater,  not  less,  as  time 
■went  on.  Holman  Hunt  dwells  upon  Rossetti's  entire  lack 
of  interest  in  natural  science  and  theories  of  evolution, 
saying,  quite  truly,  that  he  regarded  such  questions  as 
foreign  to  poetry  and  irrelevant  to  art ;  "  for  when  men  were 
different  from  the  cultured  of  mediaeval  days  they  were  not 
poetic  in  his  eyes ;  they  had  no  right  to  be  different  from  the 
people  of  Dante's  time."  This  last  passage  is  not  quite  fair, 
and  does  not  come  well  from  a  painter  most  of  whose  work  is 
marked  by  a  scrupulous  avoidance  of  the  difficidties  imposed 
on  the  artist  by  the  ordinary  modern  costume  of  Western 
Europe. 

Before  proceeding  to  see  how  the  Pre-Raphaelites  fared 
when  they  submitted  their  pictures  to  public  criticism,  we 
shall  do  well  to  consider  another  question,  much  debated  in 
these  days — the  place  of  the  subject  in  painting. 

According  to  one  school  of  criticism  the  subject  should 
never  be  of  more  than  secondary  interest  in  a  picture.  A 
picture,  when  first  we  see  it,  ought  never  to  suggest  the  ques- 
tion "  What  is  it  all  about  % "  but  only  the  exclamation 
"  How  beautiful  it  is  !  "  Mr.  George  Moore  thinks  that  art 
failed  in  the  nineteenth  century  because  the  subject  was  put 
first  and  beauty  second.  He  attributes  the  beginning  of 
this  error,  which  he  compares  with  the  potato  blight  or 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  37 

phylloxera,  to  the  painted  domestic  dramas  of  Greuze,  and 
says  that  for  the  last  hundred  years  painters  seem  to  have 
lived  in  libraries  rather  than  in  studios,  and  that  painting 
has  acted  as  a  sort  of  handmaiden  to  literature.  One  pic- 
ture that  he  selects  to  illustrate  his  contention  is  Holman 
Hunt's  TA-e  Shadow  of  Deaths  which,  he  says,  is  barren  of 
artistic  interest,  but  rejoices  the  heart  of  middle  class 
England  by  showing  dress,  tools,  a  carpenter's  shop,  and 
landscape,  that  are  either  identical  with  or  closely  resemble 
the  surroundings  of  Christ  two  thousand  years  ago.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  in  connexion  with  what  Mr.  Moore  says 
about  this  picture,  that  Holman  Hunt  maintained,  when 
defending  his  purpose  of  going  to  the  Holy  Land,  that  in 
pursuing  the  aim  of  making  more  tangible  Jesus  Christ's 
history  and  teaching  he  ought  not  surely  to  serve  art  less 
perfectly.  Doubtless  Mr.  Moore  would  say  that  he  could 
not  have  taken  a  course  more  sure  to  prevent  him  from 
serving  art  at  all.  We  have  just  quoted  Mr.  Holman  Hunt 
as  saying  of  Rossetti  that  he  treated  the  Gospel  history 
simply  as  a  storehouse  of  interesting  situations  and  beautiful 
personages  for  the  artist's  pencil.  This  is  an  exaggeration  ; 
but  Mr.  George  Moore  would  have  applauded  Rossetti  had 
he  taken  such  a  position.  He  says  that  to  Leonardo, 
Raphael,  and  Andrea  del  Sarto,  "Biblical  subjects  were 
a  mere  pretext  for  representing  man  in  all  his  attributes ; 
and  when  the  same  subjects  were  treated  by  the  Venetians 
they  were  transformed  in  a  pomp  of  colour,  and  by  an  ab- 
sence of  all  true  colour  and  by  contempt  for  history  and 
chronology  became  epical  and  fantastical.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary to  examine  any  one  of  the  works  of  the  great  Venetians 
to  see  that  they  bestowed  hardly  a  thought  on  the  subject  of 
their  pictures."     This,  again,  is  an  exaggeration.     And  Mr. 


38  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Moore  is  not  quite  consistent,  for  in  another  place  he  says, 
*•'  Sentimentality  pollutes,  the  anecdote  degrades,  wit  alto- 
gether ruins  ;  only  great  thought  enters  into  art  " ;  and  he 
praises  Rossetti's  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini  because  in  it,  though 
"  it  is  destitute  of  all  technical  accomplishment,"  the  painter 
has  "  revealed  the  essence  of  an  intensely  human  story" ;  "  he 
has  looked  deep  into  the  legend,  and  revealed  its  true  and 
human  significance."  Surely  this  is  to  give  the  subject  a  very 
high  place  in  art !  And  if  Mr.  Moore  be  right  about  this 
picture,  it  is  clear  that  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  is  wrong  in  what 
he  says  as  to  Rossetti's  attitude  towards  the  Gospel  history. 
Mr.  Moore  says  that  in  the  masterpieces  of  the  Dutch 
painters  of  the  seventeenth  century  "  we  find  no  suspicion 
of  anything  that  might  be  called  a  subject ;  the  absence  of 
subject  is  even  more  conspicuous  in  the  Dutchmen  than  in 
the  Italians."  The  Italians  would  surely  have  wondered  to 
be  told  that  there  was  no  subject  in  their  paintings ;  and  in 
Dutch  paintings  we  find  subject  in  plenty,  even  in  the  form 
of  anecdote,  which,  Mr.  Moore  says,  degrades.  Jan  Steen 
pictures  the  visit  of  a  doctor  to  a  young  lady  who  looks  as 
if  she  had  taken  a  chill  after  a  dance;  Gerard  Dou  and 
Willem  Van  Mieris  show  the  chaffering  of  seller  and  buyer 
in  poultry  shops,  and  enter  with  great  zest  into  such  subjects 
as  the  discussion  of  the  merits  and  demerits  of  hares  and 
vegetables ;  Pieter  de  Hooch  shows  a  housewife  going  to  the 
door  to  look  out  for  her  husband,  while  the  maid  brings  her 
child  after  her;  and  again,  he  paints  the  husband  coming 
along  the  garden-path,  while  his  wife  is  scolding  the  servant- 
maid  because  the  dinner  is  not  ready.  But  why  debate  the 
question  ?  As  far  back  as  art  can  be  traced,  right  away  to 
pre-historic  bone-scratchings,  the  subject  has  taken  a  promi- 
nent place  in  it. 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE   BROTHERHOOD  39 

Mr.  George  Moore  and  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  both  take  the 
same  view  of  the  proper  place  of  the  subject  in  art.  Only 
the  former  blames  French  art  for  first  giving  the  subject  too 
much  prominence,  and  the  latter  blames  English  art !  The 
error  begins,  says  the  former,  with  the  domestic  dramas  of 
Greuze,  "  and  ever  since  the  subject  has  taken  first  place  in 
the  art  of  France,  England,  and  Germany,  and  in  like  mea- 
sure as  the  subject  made  itself  felt,  so  did  art  decline." 
M.  de  la  Sizeranne  says  :  "  The  anecdotic  puzzle  of  Hogarth 
on  the  one  hand,  the  psychological  puzzle  of  Burne- Jones  on 
the  other,  all  English  painting  oscillates  between  these  two 
extremes,  which  meet,  however,  when  it  is  considered  how 
far  apart  they  are  from  the  normal  point  of  view  in  which 
an  artistic  subject  ought  to  be  treated." 

What  is  the  really  normal  point  of  view  ?  Painting  is  an 
art  in  which  subjects  of  many  kinds  can  be  adequately 
treated.  Such  critics  as  those  who  have  just  been  quoted 
do  not  deny  this.  But  they  say  that  in  a  work  of  art 
beauty  should  have  the  first  place  and  the  subject  be  sub- 
ordinate to  it.  They  beg  the  whole  question  by  calling 
pictures  works  of  art,  using  art  in  the  purely  aesthetic  sense 
of  the  word.  Pictures  often  are,  and  often  ought  to  be, 
more  than  works  of  art  in  this  narrow  acceptation.  A  tea- 
pot may  have  beauty,  it  ought  certainly  to  be  useful — 
handle  in  the  right  place  for  holding ;  spout  placed  so  that 
the  tea  will  come  out  of  it,  and  not  first  out  of  the  opening 
at  the  top.  A  tea-pot,  if  of  the  very  best,  is  "a  work  of 
art,"  and  something  more.  A  painting,  if  of  the  very  best 
— most  complete — kind,  will  combine  aesthetic  value  with 
intellectual  or  emotional  value.  It  is  incomplete,  in  the 
sense  of  not  doing  all  that  a  painting  can  do,  if  either  the 
aesthetic  appeal  or  the  intellectual  or  emotional  appeal  be 


40  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

wanting.  A  school  of  art — of  painting — in  whicli  the  sub- 
ject is  always  of  less  interest  than  the  aesthetic  treatment  of 
the  subject,  is  an  imperfect  school  of  painting ;  and  if  our 
two  critics  be  right,  the  Italian,  Dutch,  and  other  earlier 
schools  were  imperfect.  It  has,  indeed,  been  maintained, 
and  with  much  reason,  that  in  the  Italy  of  the  Renaissance 
sestheticism  was  in  excess,  with  evil  results  for  art,  literature, 
and  life  as  a  whole.  To-day  it  is  said,  with  equal  reason, 
that  science  is  in  excess  and  jBstheticism  neglected ;  and  not 
only  the  walls  of  the  Academy,  but  the  things  we  make  and 
use  are  evidence  of  it.  The  swing  of  the  pendulum,  the 
action  and  re-action  in  all  these  things,  is  extremely  complex 
and  difficult  to  follow.  See  to  what  different  conclusions 
the  two  critics  just  quoted  arrive  as  to  one  point — the  origin 
of  what  they  hold  to  be  the  over-prominence  of  the  subject 
in  painting !  English  Pre-Raphaclitism,  on  one  side  of  it, 
was  a  protest  against  a  pedantic  mimicry  of  the  aesthetic 
excess  of  the  Italian  Renaissance ;  and  if  the  protest  itself 
was  temporarily  excessive,  that  is  only  what  most  protests 
must  be  if  they  are  eventually  to  accomplish  their  object. 

Probably  the  reader  has  by  this  time  had  enough  of  this 
discussion  of  some  of  the  first  principles  of  art ;  but  unless 
we  have  them  in  mind,  when  we  are  looking  at  pictures  or 
thinking  about  them,  or  hearing  or  reading  what  other 
people  think  about  them,  mere  bewilderment  will  be  the 
result.  Anyhow,  we  have  done  with  them  for  the  present, 
and  can  now  turn  to  more  entertaining  matter — the  forma- 
tion and  history  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood. 

Holman  Hunt  and  Millais,  fellow-students  in  the  Academy 
Schools,  to  which  the  latter,  though  the  younger  of  the  two, 
had  earlier  obtained  admission,  had  been  working  together 
for  some   time  when   Rossetti,    in    1847,    sought   Holman 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  ^\ 

Hunt's  guidance  after  tiring  of  his  pickle-jar  work  under 
^radox  Brown.  They  had  already  determined  on  a  return 
to  nature,  and  were  no  longer  to  be  mere  imitators  of  Etty, 
Dyce,  Maclise,  or  any  others  of  the  accredited  art  leaders  of 
the  time.  It  seemed  as  if  Rossetti  would  join  them  in  this 
venture,  and  with  enthusiasm.  Probably  they  were  too  en- 
thusiastic to  give  adequate  attention  to  signs  that  this  could 
never  be.  The  three  seemed  to  be  united.  Rossetti  sug- 
gested that  others  should  join  them.  All  the  additions  to 
the  little  company,  save  one,  were  proposed  by  him.  All 
who  joined  them  were  to  be  or  to  become  working  artists, 
and  Hunt  and  Millais  expected  that  they  would  adopt  the 
methods  they  themselves  had  decided  to  adopt.  Thomas 
Woolner,  a  sculptor,  who  held  that  closer  touch  with  nature 
was  essential  to  the  improvement  of  the  art  he  practised, 
was  the  first  addition.  William  Rossetti,  the  brother  of 
Dante  Rossetti,  who  thought  he  might  give  up  an  appoint- 
ment at  the  Inland  Revenue  Office  and  become  a  painter, 
and  James  CoUinson,  a  painter  who  declared  his  conversion 
to  the  new  views,  were  next  introduced  by  Rossetti.  Hol- 
man  Hunt,  in  his  reminiscences,  gives  us  delightful  pictures 
of  his  and  Millais'  somewhat  anxious  hope  that  all  this 
would  work  out  for  good.  The  one  addition  to  the  group 
not  introduced  by  Rossetti — F.  G.  Stephens — was  a  friend 
of  Holman  Hunt's,  who  thought  that  he  would  be  caught 
up  in  the  whirl  of  enthusiasm  and  become  an  active  artist. 
Rossetti  would  have  had  Madox  Brown  invited  to  join 
them,  but  Holman  Hunt  had  already  formed  the  opinion, 
previously  mentioned,  that  the  "  gi'im  grotesqueness  "  and 
"  Overbeckian  "  character  of  his  work  made  it  undesirable 
that  he,  who  v>^as  also  a  considerably  older  man  than  any  of 
the  Brethren,  should  be  of  their  number. 


42  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

It  was  arranged  that  they  should  all  meet  in  conference 
at  Millais'  studio.  There  they  discussed  the  outlines  done 
by  Fuhrich  in  the  Retzsch  manner,  and  then  turned  to  a 
book  of  engravings  of  the  frescoes  in  the  Campo  Santo  at 
Pisa,  which  had  been  lent  to  Millais  ;  and,  says  Mr.  Holman 
Hunt,  "  we  insisted  that  the  naive  traits  of  frank  expression 
and  unaffected  grace  were  what  had  made  Italian  art  so 
essentially  vigorous  and  progressive,  until  the  showy  fol- 
lowers of  Michelangelo  had  grafted  their  Dead  Sea  fruit 
on  to  the  vital  tree  just  when  it  was  bearing  its  choicest 
autumnal  ripeness  for  the  reawakened  world."  It  was  the 
spirit,  however,  not  the  form — recognised  as  crude  and  im- 
mature— of  this  earlier  art  that  was  to  be  followed,  says 
Mr.  Hunt ;  who  also  states  that  when  Rossetti  used  Madox 
Brown's  term  "  Early  Christian  "  for  the  new  principles  of 
art,  he  himself  insisted  that  "  Pre-Raphaelite "  was  more 
radically  exact. 

However  this  may  be,  they  came  to  call  themselves  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood — a  designation  which,  as  I  have 
already  said,  suited  the  art  of  Rossetti  much  better  than  it 
suited  that  of  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais.  According  to 
Mr.  William  Rossetti,  the  Brethren  were  all  agreed  that 
to  be  a  Pre-Raphaelite  it  was  necessary — "(I)  to  have 
genuine  ideas  to  express ;  (2)  to  study  nature  attentively,  so 
as  to  know  how  to  express  them;  (3)  to  sympathise  with 
what  is  direct  and  heartfelt  in  previous  art  to  the  exclusion 
of  what  is  conventional  and  self- parading  and  learned  by  rote ; 
and  (4)  most  indispensable  of  all,  to  produce  thoroughly 
good  pictures  and  statues."  Close  fidelity  to  nature  does 
not  here  find  a  place — another  evidence  of  initial  differences 
in  the  views  of  the  Brethren;  and  Mr.  William  Rossetti 
states  further  that  Mr.  F.  G.  Stephens  is  wrong  in  saying 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  43 

that  one  of  their  principles  *'  was  to  the  eflfect  that  when  a 
member  found  a  model  whose  aspect  answered  his  idea  of 
the  subject  required,  that  model  should  be  painted  exactly, 
so  to  say,  hair  for  hair." 

It  is  apart  from  our  present  purpose  to  say  anything  here 
about  The  Germ,  the  short-lived  literary  organ  of  the 
Brotherhood,  itself  hardly  longer-lived.  We  have  only  to 
see  Avhat  was  the  actual  outcome  of  the  movement  in  the 
way  of  painting;  and  in  this  regard  only  the  work  of 
Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  and  Rossetti,  among  the  original 
members  of  the  Brotherhood,  is  of  any  importance. 

The  Brotherhood  was  formed  towards  the  end  of  1848, 
and  by  the  early  summer  of  the  following  year  three  pic- 
tures were  ready  for  exhibition — Holman  Hunt's  Rienzi 
Sweanng  Revenge  over  his  Brother's  Corpse,  Millais'  Lorenzo 
and  Isabella,  and  Eossetti's  The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin. 
After  each  painter's  signature  were  placed  the  letters  P.R.B. ; 
but  their  significance  was  not  understood,  and  the  pictures 
were  well  received.  In  fact,  each  of  them  found  a  purchaser. 
Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  had  sent  their  pictures  to  the 
Royal  Academy;  Rossetti's  was  shown  at  an  independent 
exhibition  in  Hyde  Park. 

The  next  year — 1850 — Holman  Hunt  sent  to  the  Academy 
A  Converted  British  Family  Sheltering  a  Christian  Mis- 
sionai-y  from  the  Persecution  of  the  Druids;  and  Millais 
sent  Christ  in  the  House  of  His  Parents  and  Ferdinand 
lured  by  Ariel.  Rossetti's  picture  this  year  was  the  Ecce 
Ancilla  Domini.  The  meaning  of  the  letters  P.R.B.  had 
leaked  out ;  it  was  now  known  that  what  was  strange  in  the 
work  of  the  young  painters  was  due,  not  to  immaturity, 
but  to  a  revolt  against  the  accepted  canons  of  art ;  and  there 
was  a  furious  outburst  of  adverse  criticism.    The  condemna- 


44  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

tion  was  i^ractically  unanimous.  Only  the  Spectator  had  a 
good  word  to  say  for  the  innovators;  but,  alas!  William 
Rossetti  wrote  the  art  critiques  for  that  paper  !  Charles 
Dickens,  in  Household  Words,  made  a  virulent  attack  on 
Millais'  Christ  in  the  House  of  His  Parents.  "  In  the  fore- 
ground of  that  carpenter's  shop,"  he  wrote,  "  is  a  hideous, 
wry-necked,  blubbering  red-haired  boy  in  a  night-gown  who 
appears  to  have  received  a  poke  in  the  hand  from  the  stick 
of  another  boy  with  whom  ho  has  been  playing  in  an  ad- 
jacent gutter,  and  to  be  holding  it  up  for  the  contemplation 
of  a  kneeling  woman,  so  horrible  in  her  ugliness  that  (sup- 
posing it  were  possible  for  any  human  creature  to  exist  for 
a  moment  with  that  dislocated  throat)  she  would  stand  out 
from  the  rest  of  the  company  as  a  monster  in  the  vilest 
cabaret  in  France  or  the  lowest  gin-shop  in  England." 

This  is  magnificent,  but  it  is  not  true.  Millais'  mother 
said  it  was  wicked,  and  there  was  much  excuse  for  her  so 
saying.  Other  critiques  were  little  if  any  less  violently 
abusive.  There  is  nothing  in  the  picture,  as  we  look  at  it 
to-day,  to  justify  the  language  then  used  about  it.  But  we 
must  remember  that  it  was  a  new  thing  then  to  be  asked  to 
think  of  the  early  life  and  surroundings  of  Christ  as  they 
actually  must  have  been — the  same  as  those  of  any  other 
workman's  child.  Even  the  nerves  of  Charles  Dickens 
could  not  stand  such  a  sudden  douche  of  the  cold  water  of 
fact.  Even  now  it  is  not  possible  to  regard  the  picture  as 
a  wholly  satisfactory  treatment  of  its  theme.  The  boy  has 
slightly  hurt  his  hand — caught  it  on  a  nail ;  and  at  once 
there  is  consternation.  His  father  holds  the  hand  to  look 
at  the  wound ;  his  mother  goes  down  on  her  knees  to  kiss 
him.  John  the  Baptist  brings  water  to  wash  the  wound, 
and  has  a  troubled  look  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  mis- 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  45 

chance  that  has  happened.  Ttie  Spoiled  Child  would  be 
the  most  appropriate  title  for  the  picture,  and  we  are  not 
helped  by  having  the  boy  Christ  represented  in  such  a  light. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  only  title  given  to  the  picture  by 
Millais  himself  was  a  quotation  from  the  Book  of  Zechar- 
aiah,  "  And  one  shall  say  unto  Him,  What  are  these  wounds 
in  Thine  hands  ?  Then  He  shall  answer,  Those  with  which 
I  was  wounded  in  the  house  of  my  friends."  The  quota- 
tion was  entirely  inappropriate  to  the  picture.  The  boy 
Christ  has  only  met  with  a  trivial  accident;  the  wounds 
mentioned  by  the  prophet  were  deliberately  inflicted  upon 
false  teachers.  The  aim  of  the  picture  to  suggest  that  the 
surroundings  of  Christ  in  His  early  days  were  quite  simple 
and  humble  might  have  been  accomplished  without  anything 
namby-pamby,  and  also  without  the  commonplace  idea  of  a 
trivial  hurt  being  a  prophecy  of  the  crucifixion. 

Mr.  Holman  Hunt  can  hardly  have  had  this  picture  in 
mind  when  he  said  that  Millais  and  he  enforced  their 
aesthetic  aims  in  the  themes  they  treated,  "  selecting  beauti- 
ful objects  for  fastidious  discrimination  in  their  portrayal "  , 
for  although  we  cannot  find  in  this  picture  the  absolute 
hideousness  that  Dickens  and  his  contemporaries  found  in 
it,  it  must  be  said  that  there  is  but  little  beauty  either 
in  the  figures  or  in  their  surroundings.  Realistic  truth,  not 
beauty,  is  the  note  of  the  picture.  On  the  whole,  we  can 
hardly  be  surprised,  even  now,  at  the  violent  outburst  of 
censure  that  greeted  this  and  the  other  Pre-Raphaelite 
pictures. 

The  picture  just  discussed  at  length  had  been  commis- 
sioned by  a  dealer,  and  it  was  long  before  he  could  find 
a  purchaser  for  it.  None  of  the  other  pictures  was  sold. 
Millais'  Ferdinavd  lured  by  Ariel  had  also  been  commis- 


46  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

sioned  by  a  dealer,  who,  when  he  had  seen  it,  simply  went 
off  his  bargain.  Millais  used  to  tell  a  story  that  showed  the 
straits  to  which  the  young  painters  were  now  reduced.  The 
hundred  guineas  promised  for  this  picture  had  been  ex- 
pended in  advance  on  household  necessaries.  There  had 
often  been  talk  of  adding  to  a  precarious  income  by  taking 
in  lodgers,  and  his  parents  now  decided  that  this  would 
have  to  be  done.  Millais  was  in  his  studio,  in  a  state  of 
utter  dejection,  when  a  friend — Mr.  Frankum — brought  in 
Mr.  Richard  Ellison,  a  well-known  connoisseur.  Mr. 
Frankum  could  see  from  Millais'  manner  that  something 
had  gone  wrong,  and,  on  questioning  him,  was  told  of  the 
picture-dealer's  refusal  of  the  picture,  and  the  straits  to 
which  the  family  was  consequently  reduced.  Before  leaving, 
Mr.  Ellison  told  Millais  that  he  had  written  a  pamplilet 
about  water-colour  painting,  and  asked  if  he  might  give  him 
a  copy  of  it,  and  write  his  name  in  it.  Millais  assented, 
out  of  mere  complaisance,  and  the  pamphlet  was  left,  with 
the  expression  of  a  hope  that  he  would  look  at  it,  as,  in  its 
author's  opinion,  he  would  find  in  it  that  which  would  in- 
terest him.  Millais  relapsed  into  his  depressed  mood ;  then, 
looking  round,  caught  sight  of  the  pamphlet  and  took  it  up. 
Two  papers  fell  out  of  it.  One  was  a  note  to  say  that  Mr. 
Ellison  wished  to  become  the  purchaser  of  the  Ferdinand 
picture  for  £150;  the  other  was  a  cheque  for  that  amount. 
Millais  rushed  with  the  cheque  into  the  room  where  his 
father  and  mother  were,  waving  it  in  his  hand,  so  elated 
that  they  thought  he  must  have  gone  mad.  The  first  thing 
that  caught  his  eye  was  a  notice  fixed  to  the  window,  adver- 
tising lodgings.  He  at  once  tore  this  down.  The  wafers 
with  which  it  had  been  fastened  to  the  glass  were  still 
sticky,  and  whenever  in  after  years  he  recalled  the  incident, 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  47 

the  feeling  of  stickiness  came  back  to  his  finger-ends.  There 
is  a  less  complete  version  of  this  story  in  his  biography.  I 
repeat  it  in  the  form  in  which  an  old  friend  of  Millais'  has 
told  me  he  had  it  from  Millais  himself. 

Probably  the  critics  hoped  that  the  severe  castigation  the 
young  revolutionaries  had  received  would  induce  them  to 
retire  from  the  apparently  utterly  unequal  contest.  This, 
indeed,  was  what  happened  in  Rossetti's  case.  He  did  not 
exhibit  again.  But  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  were  un- 
dismayed. The  former  sent  to  the  Academy  the  following 
year  Valentine  rescuing  Sylvia  from  Proteus,  and  the  latter, 
Mariana  in  the  Moated  Grange,  The  Return  of  the  Dove  to 
the  Ark,  and  The  Woodman^s  Daughter.  The  attack  on  these 
pictures  was  even  more  determined  than  that  upon  those  of 
the  previous  year.  It  was  seriously  asked  that  they  should 
be  removed  from  the  exhibition.  But  help  was  now  forth- 
coming, and  of  a  kind  that  was  sure  to  be  ejBfective.  Ruskin 
contributed  to  the  Times  two  letters  in  defence  of  the  pic- 
tures that  were  so  vehemently  condemned  by  almost  all  other 
critics.  This  was  enough  at  once  to  save  the  revolution 
from  being  crushed  out.  He  continued  the  defence  in 
lectures  and  articles;  and  if  the  young  painters  did  not 
carry  everything  before  them,  they  were  at  least  permitted 
to  hold  on  their  way,  and  reassured  art  lovers  purchased 
their  pictures. 

As  might  be  expected,  Ruskin's  main  line  of  defence 
was  that  the  pictures  were  true  to  nature.  Some  of  the 
adverse  critics  had  rashly  attacked  them  as  untrue.  Ruskin 
had  no  difficulty  in  showing  their  superiority  in  this  respect 
to  much  of  the  accepted,  academic  work.  It  was  the  imita- 
tive ability  shown  by  these  works  that  impressed  him.  "  I 
have  adduced  them  only,"  he  said,  "as  examples  of  the 


48  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  FAINriNG 

kind  of  study  which  I  would  desire  to  see  substituted  for 
that  of  our  modern  schools,  and  of  singular  success  in  cer- 
tain characters,  finish  of  detail,  and  brilliancy  of  colour. 
What  faculties,  higher  than  imitative,  may  be  in  these  men 
I  do  not  yet  venture  to  say;  but  I  do  say  that,  if  they 
exist,  such  faculties  will  manifest  themselves  in  due  time 
all  the  more  forcibly  because  they  have  received  training  so 
severe."  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  passage  in  Modern 
Painters  already  quoted,  part  of  which  appeared  in  the 
preface  to  the  essay,  "  Pre-Raphaelitism,"  from  which  the 
above  quotation  is  taken. 

In  the  same  essay  he  denied  the  accusation  that  the 
young  painters  had  imitated  the  errors  of  early  painters. 
"A  falsehood  of  this  kind,"  he  said,  '* could  not  have  ob- 
tained credence  anywhere  but  in  England,  few  English 
people,  comparatively,  having  ever  seen  a  picture  of  early 
Italian  masters.  If  they  had  they  would  have  known  that 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  pictures  are  just  as  superior  to  the  early 
Italian  in  skill  of  manipulation,  power  of  drawing,  and 
knowledge  of  effect,  as  inferior  to  them  in  grace  of  design ; 
and  that,  in  a  word,  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  resemblance 
between  the  two  styles.  The  Pre-Raphaelites  imitate  no 
pictures :  they  paint  from  nature  only."  On  Holman 
Hunt's  own  showing,  as  we  have  already  seen,  this  was  not 
true  of  Rossetti,  nor,  up  to  this  time,  of  Madox  Brown,  of 
whom,  we  may  note  here,  Ruskin  never  had  a  word  to  say, 
good  or  bad.  And  it  is  not  possible  now  to  look  at  the 
early  Pre-Raphaelite  work  of  both  Holman  Hunt  and 
Millais  without  suspecting  that  some  of  the  obvious  man- 
nerisms in  it  were  due  to  their  study  of  the  early  Italian 
painters.  Ruskin's  admission  of  the  inferiority  of  their 
pictures  in  point  of  grace  of  design  is  important.     That 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  49 

grace  their  works  never  did  come  sufficiently  to  possess ;  a 
fact  that  goes  far  to  support  the  contention  that  minute 
imitation  of  nature  is  by  no  means  the  one  essential,  even 
if  it  be  an  essential,  in  the  early  training  of  an  artist. 

To  the  charge  that  the  Pre-Raphaelites  had  no  system  of 
light  and  shade,  Ruskin  replied  that  their  system  was  ex- 
actly the  same  as  the  Sun's,  "  which  is,  I  believe,  likely  to 
outlast  that  of  the  Renaissance,  however  brilliant."  This  is 
a  mere  identification  of  art  with  the  imitation  of  nature, 
and  the  defence  is  only  a  good  one  if  the  identification  be 
accepted. 

So  far,  then,  Ruskin  praised  the  Pre-Raphaelites  for  theu- 
truth  of  imitation,  for  their  faithful  record  of  facts.  What 
further  they  could  do  remained  to  be  seen.  "If  they 
adhere  to  their  principles,"  he  said,  "  and  paint  nature  as  it 
is  around  them,  with  the  help  of  modern  science,  with  the 
earnestness  of  the  men  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  they  will  found  a  new  and  noble  school  in 
England.  If  their  sympathies  with  the  early  artists  lead 
them  into  mediaevalism  or  Romanism,  they  will,  of  course, 
come  to  nothing.  But  I  believe  there  is  no  danger  of  this 
— at  least  for  the  strongest  of  them.  There  may  be  some 
weak  ones  whom  the  Tractarian  heresies  may  touch,  but,  if 
so,  they  will  drop  off  like  decayed  branches  from  a  strong 
stem.  I  hope  all  things  from  the  school."  Earnestness, 
then,  was  the  one  thing  in  which  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  or  at 
least  those  of  them  whom  Ruskin  at  this  time  held  to  be 
really  strong,  resembled  the  painters  who  preceded  Raphael ; 
and  their  artistic  salvation  was  to  be  found  in  the  scientific 
presentment  of  nature.  Meanwhile,  Rossetti  was  painting ; 
Bume-Jones  was  to  come ;  and  both  of  them  were  to  win 
high  praise  from  Ruskin. 


so  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Rossetti's  withdrawal  from  exliibition  in  1851  was  the 
beginning  of  the  end  of  the  Brotherhood,  with  which  alone 
this  chapter  is  concerned.  We  shall  consider  hereafter  the 
later  work  of  the  members  of  the  Brotherhood,  and  follow 
the  course  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  influence  in  our  art.  But 
before  leaving  the  Brotherhood  it  is  important  to  note  that 
although  its  working  members  went  to  nature,  they  looked 
but  little  for  the  subjects  of  their  pictures  to  the  life  of 
their  own  time.  In  this  respect,  as  we  shall  find  in  the 
next  chapter,  they  differed  widely  from  the  painters  who  led 
the  almost  contemporary  movement  in  France.  The  Pre- 
Raphaelites  painted  chiefly  subjects  from  the  Bible,  from 
history,  from  poetry.  To  a  large  extent  their  works  were 
glorified  book-illustrations ;  and  one  is  puzzled  at  times  to 
account  for  their  choice  of  subject,  as,  for  example,  in  the 
case  of  Holman  Hunt's  Rienzi  vmcing  Vengeance  over  his 
Brother's  Corpse.  This  seems  curious  material  with  which 
to  begin  a  return  to  nature  ;  and  here,  and  in  other  pictures 
modern  English  people,  amid  obviously  modern  English 
landscape,  yet  dressed  in  mediaeval  costume  and  supposed  to 
be  Italians,  bring  the  whole  very  near  at  least  to  the  region 
of  tableau.  The  actors  play  their  parts  with  great  earnest- 
ness, but  it  is  often  acting,  not  life,  that  faces  us,  and 
conviction  does  not  come  because  the  accessories  and  the 
surroundings  are  painted  with  minute  truthfulness.  Even 
the  Pre-Raphaelites  could  not  at  once  escape  from  the  artistic 
environment  amid  which  they  had  been  brought  up.  They 
went  to  nature,  one  repeats,  but  they  did  not  yet  go  to 
contemporary  life.  They  were  less  in  touch  with  it,  indeed, 
than  were  some  of  the  orthodox  painters,  who,  however 
treated  it  too  often  in  a  trivial  manner.  The  highest  his- 
torical painting — that  which   interprets  passing  events  in 


THE  PRE-RAPHAELITE  BROTHERHOOD  51 

the  light  of  the  centuries — was  yet  to  come.  And  here  we 
sliall  find  that  Madox  Brown  led  the  way.  But  it  will  be 
instructive,  before  pursuing  further  the  course  of  English 
painting,  to  consider  the  French  movement  to  which  refer- 
ence has  repeatedly  been  made. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   IMPRESSIONISTS   AND  THEIR   ALLIES 

n'^HE  movement  in  French  art  which,  as  abeady  said,  was 
-*■  almost  contemporaneous  with  the  Pre-Raphaelite  move- 
ment in  England,  was,  like  the  latter,  a  revolt  against  tradi- 
tion— indeed,  against  an  almost  identical  tradition,  though 
the  French  movement  took  a  very  different  course  from  the 
English  one,  and  has  since  reacted  strongly  on  English  art 
and  on  that  of  other  countries. 

We  have  seen  that  the  English  movement  was  not  a 
simple  one — not  homogeneous,  if  the  reader  do  not  object  to 
a  long  word.  Art  can  no  more  be  simple  than  is  our  whole 
intellectual  and  emotional  life,  of  which  it  is  one  of  the 
chief  modes  of  expression.  There  has  been  complexity  in 
modern  French  painting,  much  the  same  as  that  of  con- 
temporary English  painting ;  for  although  there  are  always 
peculiarities  clearly  marking  off  the  art  of  different  nations, 
there  are  also  many  general  resemblances.  It  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  we  can  find  the  French  equivalents  of  our 
Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  Rossetti,  Watts,  Burne-Jones,  and 
others ;  yet  not  the  mere  equivalents,  be  it  emphasised,  but 
the  French  equivalents. 

As  many  if  not  most  of  those  who  read  these  pages  will 
necessarily  be  less  familiar  with  French  than  with  English 
painting,  it  may  be  well  to  discuss  at  greater  length  than 

52 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      53 

was  done  with  reference  to  English  art,  the  work  of  the 
artists  who  led  up  to  the  new  departure  of  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

The  observant  English  traveller  in  France  can  hardly  fail 
to  notice,  before  he  has  gone  very  far  on  his  journey  from 
one  of  the  northern  seaports,  how  much  more  symmetrical 
are  the  French  country-houses  than  those  in  our  own 
country.  The  door  is  exactly  in  the  centre  of  the  main 
front;  there  is  the  same  number  of  windows  at  each  side 
of  it;  and  then  there  are  often  two  identical,  turret- crowned 
projections,  one  at  each  end.  We  may  trace  this  formal 
style  to  the  Italian  Renaissance ;  we  are  familiar  with  it  in 
our  large  Elizabethan  mansions ;  but  it  found  in  France  a 
more  congenial  soil  than  in  England.  Do  we  not  inevitably 
think  of  logic,  lucidity,  ordered  beauty,  in  connexion  with 
both  French  art  and  French  literature,  whereas  in  our  art 
and  literature  expression  tends  to  break  down  form  ?  The 
contrast  between  the  rules  with  which  the  classical  French 
drama  was  hedged  about,  and  the  freedom  of  our  Eliza- 
bethan drama,  is  too  well  known  to  require  more  than  men- 
tion. In  art  we  find  this  difference  so  early  as  in  mediaeval 
architecture.  French  Gothic  was  more  severely  logical  than 
English  Gothic ;  and  its  ornamental  sculpture  was  held 
more  in  architectural  restraint.  And,  to  take  the  most 
obvious  modern  instance,  compare  the  formal,  calculated 
beauty  of  Paris  with  the  haphazard  picturesqueness  of 
London. 

The  difference  between  the  art  of  the  two  nations  is 
rooted  in  differences  in  national  character  and  tradition. 
The  Latin  tradition,  which  we  have  found  M.  de  la  Sizerannc 
desirous  of  upholding,  affects  more  things  than  art.  Roman 
imperialism  has  had  more  lasting  results  in  France  than  in 


54  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

England.  The  basis  for  the  rules  of  practical  conduct  in 
France  is  the  civil  law  of  Rome ;  in  our  country  it  is  the 
common  law,  the  tradition  of  a  people  who  and  whose 
ancestors  on  the  Continent  never  thoroughly  took  the  im- 
press of  the  Roman  stamp,  and  who  have  always  revealed 
a  strong  instinct  for  individual  freedom.  In  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  we  did  indeed  put  ourselves  under 
the  Roman  yoke  in  architecture,  and  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  period  there  was  a  strong  desire  to  do  the  same  thing  in 
painting — just  as  we  have  had  our  classical  literature  also, 
our  Dryden  and  our  Pope — and  dull  things  have  looked, 
and  still  look,  very  dull  under  our  so  often  dull  skies ;  but 
there  has  ever  been  a  spirit  of  revolt,  and  we  shall  win  our 
perfect  freedom  yet ;  not,  it  may  be  hoped,  to  abuse  it ;  but 
at  the  same  time  not  to  sacrifice  expression  and  individuality 
to  conventional  beauty. 

We  have  already  briefly  considered  the  strength  of  the 
Latin  tradition  in  French  art,  and  have  seen  that  Jacques 
Louis  David  revived  classical  art  in  France  towards  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  had  begun  his  career  as  a 
follower  of  Watteau  and  Boucher,  but  he  obtained  the  Prix 
de  Eo7ne,  and,  following  the  usual  routine,  went  to  Rome  to 
study  in  the  French  Academy.  He  painted  in  the  most 
severely  classical  manner  such  subjects  as  the  Horatii  taking 
the  oath,  Brutus  looking  at  the  bodies  of  his  sons  after  the 
death-sentence  had  been  executed  upon  them,  and  the  rape 
of  the  Sabines.  The  Parisians  of  the  Revolution  linked 
these  subjects,  taken  from  the  early  history  of  Rome,  with 
their  own  struggle  for  freedom  ;  it  was,  indeed,  the  painter's 
intention  that  this  should  be  so.  A  revolutionist  himself, 
he  sought  to  make  not  only  his  own  art,  but  every  phase  of 
art,  expressive  of  the  great  upheaval  of  his  day.     Even  his 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      55 

portraiture  had  something  of  Roman  severity,  and  his 
Madame  Recamier  wears  a  simple,  classical  dress,  has  her 
hair  bound  in  a  fillet,  and  reclines  on  a  couch  of  classical  de- 
sign, with  a  classical  candelabrum  by  it.  An  art  that  while 
leaning  upon  the  past,  took  for  its  subject  the  Romans 
breaking  with  their  past,  just  suited  the  mood  of  a  people 
that  was  breaking  with  its  own  past ;  and  the  painter  be- 
came a  popular  hero. 

Regnault,  Vincent,  Gu^rin,  Girodet,  Gerard,  followed 
more  or  less  closely  in  the  path  marked  out  by  David ;  and 
learned  draughtsmanship,  formal  composition,  and  colour  in- 
evitably dry  and  cold  in  such  companionship,  or,  rather,  in 
such  service,  became  universal.  Subjects,  also,  were  almost 
invariably  taken  from  ancient  history  and  mythology, 
treated  with  little  or  no  imagination.  Only  in  portraiture 
was  art  at  all  in  touch  with  life.  Prudhon,  who  in  Italy 
had  been  chiefly  attracted  by  the  northern  painters,  became 
the  French  Correggio.  Baron  Gros  wavered  between  in- 
terest in  contemporary  events  and  the  ancient  history 
imposed  upon  him  by  his  master  David.  Then  Gericault 
took  the  plunge  into  modern  life,  but  retained  much  of  the 
classical  manner.  His  military  pictures  and  his  Raft  of  the 
Medusa  show  him  to  be  near  the  parting  of  the  ways. 
Delacroix  carried  natural  action  and  expression  still  further, 
and,  more  than  this,  based  his  art  on  colour  more  than  on 
draughtsmanship.  The  parting  of  the  ways  was  reached, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  us  to  note  that  English  art  was  not 
without  influence  in  this  change  of  direction  of  French  art. 
Gericault  had  praised  the  colour  and  eff'ect  of  English 
painting,  and  Delacroix  admired  so  much  the  fresh  and 
luminous  colour  of  Constable's  pictures  as  actually  to  alter 
his  own  work  after  seeing  them. 


56  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  painting  of  the  Classical  school  was  based  on  an  im- 
perfect understanding  of  Greek  and  Roman  art.  While  the 
permanence  of  the  material  in  which  it  was  wrought  has 
preserved  to  us  a  quite  considerable  amount  of  ancient 
sculpture,  the  perishableness  of  the  material  upon  which 
paintings  were  executed  has  resulted  in  the  destruction  of 
all  but  a  few  examples,  and  those  mostly  fragmentary.  Of 
Greek  painting  we  know  hardly  anything,  except  through 
contemporary  description,  and  what  we  may  trust  ourselves 
to  learn  from  the  vases.  Of  Graeco-Roman  painting  we 
have  learned  most  of  what  we  know  from  the  remains  at 
Pompeii;  and  Pompeii  was  almost  unexplored  in  David's 
time.  It  was  from  the  architecture  and  the  sculpture  of 
Rome  that  he  derived  his  ideas  of  ancient  art.  Had  he,  as 
a  young  man,  seen  the  Pompeian  mosaic,  representing  the 
flight  of  Darius  at  the  battle  of  Issus,  and  understood  its 
significance,  his  art  could  not  have  become  what  it  did. 
Could  he  have  had  the  mosaic  in  his  mind  when,  near  the 
end  of  his  life,  he  stood  before  Delacroix's  Daniels  Barky  he 
would  have  known  that  picture  to  be  more  in  the  spirit, 
and  even  according  to  the  letter,  of  Roman  painting  than 
his  own  Horatii  or  Rape  of  the  Sabines.  Delacroix  knew 
this :  at  least,  as  a  protest  against  David's  cold,  sculptur- 
esque treatment  of  subjects  taken  from  ancient  history,  he 
painted  them  himself  with  more  realistic  truth  of  action 
and  expression,  remembering  that  the  people  of  classical 
days  did  once  really  live.  The  classical  movement  was  in  a 
great  degree  ignorant  superstition — one  might  almost  call  it 
grovelling  superstition.  We  call  to  mind  that  in  England — 
it  had  not  been  without  protest  against  his  so  doing — 
Sir  Benjamin  West  had  given  to  the  soldiery  in  his  Death  of 
General  Wolfe  their  actual  English  uniforms,  and  not  the 


LA  SOURCE 


J.    D.    INGRES 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      57 

military  costume  of  the  Romans.  In  architecture  and 
sculpture,  as  well  as  in  painting,  what  have  we  not  had  to 
suffer,  what  do  we  not  still  suffer,  through  our  artists  for- 
gettmg  that  if  art  is  to  be  living  it  must  chiefly  live  in  the 
present ;  and,  if  it  deal  with  the  past,  must  deal  with  it  in 
a  living  way,  must  make  it  live  again ! 

Delacroix  did  not  easily  carry  the  day  against  classicism. 
It  found  a  fresh  and  vigorous  recruit  in  Ingres,  a  pupil  of 
David,  who  again  put  draughtsmanship  before  colour  and 
movement.  He  was  eighteen  years  older  than  Delacroix, 
but  was  a  man  of  much  stronger  physique,  and  outlived  the 
younger  painter  by  four  years.  Born  in  1780,  he  lived 
until  1867,  thus  reaching  the  long  count  of  eighty-seven 
years.  He  was  strenuously,  bitterly  opposed  to  Delacroix, 
whose  election  to  the  Institute  drew  from  him  the  remark, 
"  Now  the  wolf  is  in  the  sheepfold."  Truly,  it  is  hardly 
a  less  unpleasant  thing  to  introduce  new  art  than  new 
theology  !  While  such  a  man  ruled,  art  had  little  chance  of 
becoming  an  interpreter  of  life  and  nature.  The  hold  of 
the  dead  hand  of  Rome  was  only  gradually  weakened, 
though,  more  and  more,  art  turned  to  modern  themes  for 
its  subjects.  Thus  Paul  Delaroche,  who  was  almost  the 
same  age  as  Delacroix,  is  best  known  by  such  works  as  The 
Princes  in  the  Toicer,  TJie  Death  of  Queen  Elizahethy  Straf- 
ford on  the  Way  to  Executiori^  Oliver  Cromwell^  and  The 
Assassination  of  the  Duke  of  Guise.  It  is  true  that  these 
were  little  more  than  academic  exercises,  with  the  pathetic 
or  tragic  interest  of  subject  that  would  make  them  popular ; 
but  there  was  life  in  them,  if  not  the  passionate  life  of  the 
works  of  Delacroix ;  and  in  one  instance,  at  least — the  head 
of  the  dying  Elizabeth — Delaroche  showed  great  dramatic 
power. 


58  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Thomas  Couture,  again,  was  at  the  parting  of  the  ways. 
He  could  not  wholly  escape  from  classicism  in  his  painting, 
though  as  a  teacher — he  was  in  great  request  after  the  ex- 
hibition of  his  Orgie  Romaine  in  1847,  and  Manet  was  one  of 
his  pupils — he  strongly  opposed  himself  to  it.  About  the 
art  of  Gustave  Courbet,  however,  there  was  no  hesitation; 
it  was,  in  its  own  time,  nothing  less  than  provocatively, 
defiantly  realistic.  When  we  see  to-day,  hung  probably  in 
the  same  gallery,  paintings  differing  widely  in  method  and 
intention,  and  which  we  quietly  value,  each  for  the  worth 
it  possesses,  it  requires  an  effort  of  the  imagination  to 
realise  the  storms  that  raged  about  them  when  first  they 
were  painted  and  exhibited.  Courbet  was  born  in  1819  at 
Ornans,  near  Besan9on ;  and  though  trained  in  the  school 
of  David,  he  early  repudiated,  both  in  work  and  speech,  its 
methods  and  aims.  He  made  no  pause,  either,  at  the  half- 
way house  of  Delacroix ;  but  declared,  and  maintained  the 
declaration  in  practice,  that  the  painter's  proper  work  was 
to  paint  what  he  could  see  about  him.  Among  the  old 
masters  his  heroes  were  such  men  as  Holbein,  Ribera, 
Zurbaran,  Velasquez,  and  Ostade,  who  had  painted  the 
things  and  the  people  they  could  see.  Of  Raphael  he 
admired  only  the  portraits ;  the  great  compositions  of  sacred 
and  historical  subjects  were  nothing  to  him.  For  the  imita- 
tors of  Raphael  he  had  only  contempt.  To  him  the  ideal 
was  the  empty.  In  life  a  republican  and  a  socialist,  he 
chose  nature  and  the  ordinary  people  of  his  own  time  as  the 
themes  of  his  art.  Railway  stations,  mines,  and  manufac- 
tories, he  said,  were  the  miracles  of  the  modern  time ;  and 
the  great  among  living  men  were  its  saints.  AVhen  this 
programme  for  art  failed  to  find  favour,  and  his  pictures 
were  refused  at  the  international  exhibition   in  Paris   in 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       59 

1855,  he  opened  an  independent  exhibition  of  his  own 
works  in  a  wooden  hut,  and  enforced  their  purpose  with  the 
aid  of  a  pamphlet.  The  objections  raised  to  his  work  were 
of  the  same  kind  as  those  our  Pre-Raphaehte  painters  had 
to  face.  Eyes  that  had  grown  used  to  a  vapid  idealism 
could  see  only  malicious  caricature  in  the  plain  rendering  of 
people  as  they  actually  were.  Because  he  painted  a  funeral 
at  his  native  village  at  Ornans  with  a  real,  commonplace 
parish  priest  officiating,  and  country-folk  that  would  be 
recognisable  as  such  in  any  garb,  standing  round  the  grave, 
he  was  accused  of  ridiculing  a  religious  function.  To-day 
we  cannot  read  this  into  the  picture  any  more  than  we  can 
read  into  Millais'  Christ  in  the  House  of  His  Parents  what 
Dickens  and  his  contemporaries  saw  in  that  picture.  Cour- 
bet's  picture  is  an  historical  document.  Such  were  the 
French  peasantry  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Courbet  painted  other  village  scenes  at  Ornans.  His  peasants 
returning  from  market  may  amuse  the  townsman,  not  be- 
cause they  are  untrue  to  life,  but  because  they  are  un- 
sophisticated, are  fearlessly  living  their  own  life,  not  one 
imposed  upon  them  by  the  arbiters  of  fashion.  His  stone- 
breakers  anticipate  the  sculpture  of  Meunier ;  the  picture  is 
one  that  authority  might  well  have  suppressed,  as  work  by 
the  Belgian  sculptor  has  been  suppressed,  because  it  might 
incite  to  socialism.  His  grisettes  lying  on  the  river-bank 
are  typical  Parisian  shop-girls  enjoying  their  dolcefar  niente^ 
careless  of  appearances  so  long  as  they  are  physically  com- 
fortable ;  his  nude  figures  are  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood. 
His  deer  in  the  forest  are  wild  creatures  amid  wild  sur- 
roundings. His  picture  Tlie  Wave  shows  that  he  has 
stood  upon  the  shore  and  deeply  felt  the  immensity  of  sea 
and  sky.     In  all  his  work  we  see  that  a  virile  power  has 


6o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

been  handling  actual  things.  He  was  wrong,  of  course,  in 
so  far  as  he  maintained  that  nothing  but  this  was  included 
in  the  mission  of  art.  But  his  theory  was  the  outcome  of 
a  conviction  that  produced  a  remarkable  life-work.  More 
catholic  in  criticism,  his  work  would  have  been  of  less  value. 
He  is  the  very  antithesis  of  David ;  reaching  him,  we  have 
passed  from  one  extreme  of  theory  and  practice  to  another ; 
and,  with  reference  to  our  present  purpose,  we  have  said 
now  all  that  is  needful  about  the  subject  painters  who  were 
the  immediate  predecessors  of  the  French  painters  whose 
work  we  have  more  particularly  to  study.  We  have  next  to 
turn  for  a  brief  space  to  the  landscape  painters,  with  whom, 
conveniently,  if  not  quite  logically,  we  shall  link  Jean 
Fran9ois  Millet. 

We  have  seen  landscape  painting  in  classical  bondage, 
yet,  in  modern  painting,  it  has  been  one  of  the  liberators  of 
art.  Face  to  face  with  nature,  and  with  the  labour  by 
means  of  which  men  win  their  subsistence  from  nature, 
artificiality  is  at  a  discount ;  and  history  is  of  little  moment, 
for  here  are  the  great  elemental  facts  of  life  that,  in  their 
main  features,  antedate  history.  This  large,  living  work 
inevitably  reacts  upon  that  of  the  subject  painters  in  the 
towns.  And  it  may  also  be  noted  here  that  portraiture, 
which  has  not  merely  men  and  women  but  mankind  for  its 
subject,  is  often  intensely  alive,  when  there  is  little  or  no 
life  in  subject-pictures.  How  stale  and  unprofitable,  to  take 
but  one  example,  Reynolds  became  when  he  attempted  his- 
torical and  sacred  subjects  !  Along  with  these  two  branches 
of  art — though  this  is  rather  a  parenthesis — may  be  placed 
the  work  of  the  caricaturist.  Nobody  expects  from  a  Row- 
landson,  a  Gavarni,  a  Daumier,  a  Charles  Keene,  or  a 
Du  Maurier,  the  grand  style  and  pre-occupation  with  gods 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       6i 

and  goddesses,  with  saints  and  heroes  long  dead.  What  he 
is  likelier  to  do  is  to  bring  dead  gods  and  heroes  down  from 
their  pedestals;  and,  with  regard  to  contemporary  life,  he 
makes  easier  a  frank  and  nobly  realistic  treatment  of  it, 
because,  in  order  to  make  his  own  work  tell,  he  must  depict, 
even  if  in  the  way  of  exaggeration,  the  realities  of  life. 
But  our  immediate  concern  is  with  the  landscape  painters. 

Probably  those  who  are  least  willing  that  English 
artists  should  seek  to  learn  something  in  the  schools  of 
France  will  not  be  unwilling  to  believe  that  French  land- 
scape painting  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  owed  much  to  Constable  and  his  contemporaries  in 
this  country.  Even  if  there  were  but  slight  evidence  that 
this  was  the  fact,  one  would  be  glad  to  believe  it,  not 
merely  as  ground  for  national  pride,  but  as  justification  for 
a  wise  internationalism.  The  evidence,  however,  is  not 
slight,  but  strong;  and  the  fact  is  willingly  admitted  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  as,  quite  recently,  to  the 
present  writer,  by  the  distinguished  French  critic,  M. 
Theodore  Duret. 

In  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  French 
landscape  painting,  as  represented  by  such  men  as  Bidault 
and  Watelet,  was  still  in  the  bonds  of  classicism;  and 
though  Georges  Michel,  in  such  paintings  as  Aux  Environs 
de  Montmai'tre,  came  nearer  to  English  naturalism,  a  revela- 
tion was  needed,  either  from  inside  or  outside,  before  the 
art  could  be  freed  from  the  old  dispensation.  The  revela- 
tion came  from  outside,  from  England,  where  if  art  had  not 
been  generally  set  free,  yet  some  artists  had  freed  them- 
selves. 

At  the  Salon  of  1822,  English  water-colour  painting  was 
represented  by  Bonington,  Copley  Fielding,  liobson,  and  John 


62  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Varley;  in  1824,  Constable  exhibited  The  Hay  Wain  and 
two  other  pictures ;  and  the  water-colourists  were  again  in 
evidence.  For  Constable,  on  this  occasion,  the  old  saying 
about  the  prophet  and  his  honour  held  good ;  he  who  had 
seen  one  of  his  pictures  rejected  by  his  fellow-members  of 
the  hanging  committee  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  London 
received  a  gold  medal  in  Paris ;  and  he  continued  to  send 
his  pictures  there  until  1827,  in  which  year  the  first  picture 
by  Corot  accepted  at  the  Salon  was  hung  between  a  Con- 
stable and  a  Bonington.  A  few  years  later  a  group  of 
French  landscape  painters  went  to  nature  in  a  sense  in  which 
the  English  Pre-Raphaelites  twenty  years  afterwards  did  not 
go  to  her.  They  went  to  live  with  her,  to  make  her  their 
all-absorbing  subject,  not  merely  to  find  a  setting  for  figure- 
subjects.  On  the  outskirts  of  the  forest  of  Fontainebleau, 
in  the  village  of  Barbizon,  Corot,  Rousseau,  Diaz,  and 
others  lived  the  simple  life  from  spring  until  the  winter 
came,  painting  amid  the  immemorial  oaks  and  chestnuts  and 
beeches  of  the  forest,  and  each  of  them  interpreting  nature 
in  his  own  way. 

Of  the  Barbizon  group  Corot  and  Millet — the  latter  did 
not  join  it  until  1849 — have  exercised  the  deepest  influence 
on  the  after  course  of  art ;  but  it  will  be  well  for  us  to  glance 
at  the  work  of  several  of  its  most  important  members ;  for 
though  it  is  with  later  generations  of  painters  that  we  are 
chiefly  concerned  here,  not  merely  the  influence,  but  much 
of  the  work,  of  the  Barbizon  school,  comes  within  our  special 
period. 

Were  there  no  external  evidence  for  the  influence  of 
Constable  upon  these  painters,  the  internal  evidence  of 
some  of  the  early  Avork  of  Rousseau,  in  the  Thomy-Thi^ry 
collection  at  the  Louvre,  would  be  sufficiently  convincing; 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       63 

and  all  through  his  work,  at  any  time  of  his  career,  it  is 
difficult  not  to  think  of  the  vigorous  naturalism  of  the 
Suffolk  painter.  Rousseau,  like  Constable,  painted  nature 
as  he  saw  it;  not  merely  as  he  saw  it  with  the  physical 
sight,  giving  a  mere  objective  record,  but  as  lie  saw  it ;  as 
his  temperament,  his  thought  about  nature,  necessitated  his 
seeing  it.  But  it  was  nature  that  he  painted.  He  did  not 
go  out  to  find  material  for  pictures.  He  went  out  to  be  in 
communion  with  nature;  and  his  pictures  tell  us  what 
nature  was  to  him.  It  is  not  of  nature,  whether  as  a  great 
evolutionary  epic,  or  in  her  lyrical  moods,  that  we  think, 
when  looking  at  the  works  of  the  classical  landscape 
painters.  They  present  to  us  a  wholly  unreal  world,  not 
the  real  one,  too  rough  and  untidy  for  ladies  and  gentlemen 
to  walk  through  on  fine  days  without  injury  to  tender  feet 
and  dainty  costumes.  Rousseau's  world  is  the  forest  and 
the  plain,  and  if  there  be  people  about,  they  are  simple 
toilers ;  if  there  be  buildings,  they  are  cottages  and  farm- 
steads, so  rude  as  to  seem  themselves  almost  a  part  of 
nature. 

Rousseau,  indeed,  was  more  alone  with  nature  than  was 
Constable,  whose  Suffolk  was  a  cultivated  country.  The 
work  of  man  is  oftener  than  not  in  evidence  in  Constable's 
pictures.  Their  titles  alone  show  it — The  Hay  Wain,  The 
Valley  Farm,  The  Glebe  FariUy  The  Cornfield,  The  Lock, 
The  Vale  of  Dedham.  Oftener,  perhaps,  than  not  in 
Rousseau's  pictures  there  is  no  sign  of  the  presence  of 
man,  unless  the  cattle  must  be  taken  to  imply  that  he  is 
near ;  and  the  cattle  do  not  obtrude  themselves  as  they  do 
in  the  pictures  of  another  of  the  group,  Troyon.  The 
forest  of  Fontainebleau  and  its  surroundings  were  almost 
untamed  nature ;  and  it  is  to  ancient  trees,  forest-ponds,  and 


64  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the   varying  effects  of  morning,  noon,   and  evening,  that 
Rousseau's  titles  chiefly  draw  our  attention. 

It  was  not  the  lyrical  beauty  of  nature  that  appealed  to 
Rousseau,  but  the  living  energy,  the  power,  and  the  splendour. 
His  forest-trees  are  battered  veterans  that  have  survived  the 
early  struggle  for  existence,  and  then,  with  stern  endurance, 
have  braved  the  lightning  and  the  gale,  not  without  grievous 
loss.  And  death  has  befallen  some,  as  in  the  end  it  must 
come  to  all.  Such  things  as  these  were  what  Rousseau  ^ 
went  out  to  see  and  to  paint.  In  his  portrait  he  looks  as  if 
he  might  himself  taken  part  in  the  struggle.  He  did, 
indeed,  have  his  own  struggle,  veritably  for  existence.  From 
1835  to  1848  his  work  was  rejected  at  the  Salon,  and  his 
condition  was  little  above  poverty. 

Of  more  importance  than  Rousseau,  or  any  other  of  his 
companions,  in  preparing  the  way  for  Impressionism,  was 
Corot ;  and  for  this  very  reason  we  will  glance  at  the  other 
chief  members  of  the  Barbizon  group  before  referring  to 
him  and  his  work. 

Diaz,  Dupre,  and  Harpignies  were  three  other  artistic 
denizens  of  the  field  and  the  forest ;  and  while  all  of  them 
painted  face  to  face  with  nature,  each  of  them  interpreted 
her  in  accordance  with  his  own  temperament.  Diaz,  of 
Spanish  origin,  loved  the  beauty  and  brightness  of  the  sun- 
light as  it  played  among  the  trees ;  Dupre  loved  the  move- 
ment of  nature,  the  alternations  of  light  and  gloom,  the 
wind  and  the  rain.  The  sky  ahuost,  if  not  wholly,  rivals 
the  landscape  in  his  pictures.  Ruskin  complained  that 
Constable  was  content  with  light  when  it  was  "  flickering, 
glistening,  restless,  and  feeble."  In  the  works  of  Dupre, 
who  not  only  came  under  Constable's  influence,  but  actually 
met  him  in  this  country,  there  is  certainly  more  sense  of 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      65 

the  power  of  nature  than  in  those  of  the  Engh'sh  master. 
Harpignies  delighted  in  breadth  of  irradiating  light.  Such 
brief  comments  as  these  cannot  sum  up  an  artist's  work, 
but  they  serve  to  hint  at  the  varied  ways  in  which  this 
group  of  painters  interpreted  nature.  With  Troyon,  another 
of  the  group,  nature,  though  sympathetically  rendered,  be- 
came a  secondary  thing,  the  home  of  the  cattle  and  sheep 
that  clearly  held  the  first  place  in  his  affection.  All  these 
men  were  born  in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  their  outlook  was  determined  before  the  century 
had  half  run  its  course. 

Jean  Francois  Millet  also  belongs  to  their  generation ;  but 
in  his  art,  not  nature,  nor,  as  with  Troyon,  its  humbler  deni- 
zens, but  the  men  and  women  who  work  in  the  fields,  and 
who  tend  the  cattle  and  sheep,  claim  the  first  place.  He 
was  born  in  1814,  at  Gruchy,  on  the  coast  of  Normandy, 
where  his  father  was  a  farmer.  There,  as  boy  and  youth, 
he  worked  as  a  farm-hand;  but  all  the  time  he  lost  no 
chance  of  drawing,  and  his  skill  was  so  manifest,  even  to 
the  simple  folk  about  him,  that  at  last,  when  he  was  twenty 
years  old,  there  was  obtained  for  him  some  teaching  at 
Cherbourg,  and  three  years  later  he  became  the  pupil  of 
Delaroche  in  Paris.  But  Millet  was  not  at  home  in  the 
great  city,  nor  was  it  in  him  to  paint  pictures  in  either 
the  classical  or  the  romantic  style.  Art  meant  to  him  one 
thing  :  power  to  interpret  the  life  of  such  people  as  those 
among  whom  he  was  born  ;  and,  in  1848,  he  found  his  way 
to  Barbizon,  there,  as  the  event  showed,  fully  to  accomplish 
the  task  that  was  rather  determined  for  him  by  inward 
necessity  than  merely  chosen.  "Man  goeth  forth  to  his 
labour  until  the  evening";  this  was  the  subject  of  all 
Millet's  work.     "My  critics,"  he  said,  "are  men  of  learning 


(^  FIFTY    YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  taste,  but  I  cannot  put  myself  in  their  skin  ;  and 
having  seen  nothing  all  my  life  but  the  fields,  I  try  to  say 
as  best  I  can  what  I  experienced  when  I  worked  in  them." 
How  well  he  said  it !  The  life  of  the  fields  is  not  an  easy 
one.  For  those  who  have  its  simplest  work  to  do  it  is  hard 
and  it  is  monotonous.  Millet  painted  it  in  all  its  stern 
simplicity.  Under  his  hand  it  is  seen  as  a  great  epic.  I 
have  already  made  a  comparison  between  Millet's  country- 
man and  contemporary  Courbet,  and  the  Belgian  sculptor 
Meunier.  What  Meunier  has  done  for  the  mine  and 
foundry-workers  of  Belgium,  Millet  did  before  him  for  the 
peasantry  of  France — and,  through  them,  for  some  at  least 
among  the  peasantry  of  all  times  and  countries  hitherto. 
He  had  no  need  to  idealise,  but  only  to  give  the  simple 
truth,  in  order  to  make  his  men  and  women  heroic;  for 
assuredly  there  is  in  the  labour  with  which  man  wins  his 
food  from  the  soil  a  patient  heroism  that  expresses  itself  in 
form  and  action.  Ruskin  found  fault  with  Millet  because 
he  did  not  show  the  faces  of  his  toilers.  This  seems  like 
the  objection  of  one  who  wished  to  object,  for  again  and 
again  we  see  the  face,  and  always  it  tells  the  same  story : 
of  patient  fulfilment  of  the  daily  task,  made  possible  by 
human  affection  and — as  we  know,  and  Millet's  Angelvs 
suggests  it — the  hope  of  heaven. 

It  has  been  said  that  Millet's  rendering  of  the  life  of  the 
peasant  was  a  pessimistic  one.  We  need  not  discuss  the 
point  at  length.  Always  and  everywhere  it  has  not  been  as 
he  painted  it.  But  it  has  been  and  it  still  is  so  ;  and  more 
than  this,  it  has  been  and  still  is  in  many  a  place  some- 
thing far  harder  than  it  was  even  as  he  knew  it. 

His  o^vn  lot  was  but  little  better  than  that  of  the 
peasantry  around  him.    He  could  barely  live  and  support  his 


L'AMOUR  VAINQUKUR 


J.    K.    MILLET 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       67 
family,  even  in  a  life  of  the  utmost  simpUcity,  by  the  sale 
of  pictures  for  which  to-day  the  wealthiest  compete— r7i« 
Winnower,  The  Sower,  The  Gleaners,  The  Wood  Sawyers, 
The  Anr/elus.     There  is  little  need  to  name  or  to  describe 
his  pictures  now,   some  of   which,  by  reproduction,  have 
become  familiar  in  many  a  household.     The  painter  of  them 
knew  at  one  time  what  it  was  for  neither  himself  nor  his 
wife  to  taste  food  for  a  whole  day,  thankful  if  only  their 
children  did  not  want.     Such  a  price  as  this  paid  for  a 
return  to  nature  and  actual  life  makes  the  brief  hardships 
of   our   Pre-Raphaelites   seem   by   comparison   little   more 
than  such  inconveniences  as  are  gaily  borne  by  a  picnic- 
party.     But  Millet  lived  long  enough  to  meet  with  both 
recognition  and  material  success. 

We  come  now  to  Corot,  for  with  those  whom  we  may  call 
the  second  generation  of  the  Barbizon  group  we  are  not  at 
the  moment  concerned. 

Camille  Corot  was  born  in  Paris  in  1796,  twenty  years 
later  than  Constable;   and  it  is  not  uninteresting  to  note 
that,  like  Turner,  he  was  the  son  of  a  hairdresser.     His 
father,  taking  up  his  wife's  business,  subsequently  became 
Court  modiste,  and  a  man  of  means  able  to  give  his  son  an 
allowance  of  twelve  hundred  francs,  when,  after  much  parental 
opposition,  it  had  been  decided  that  he  should  become  a 
painter.     His  early  training  was  inevitably  in  the  academic 
tradition  of  his  time.     Almost  inevitably  also,  he  went  to 
Italy.     This  was  in  1825,  when  he  was  twenty-eight  years 
old :  and  he  spent  two  and  a  half  years  in  and  about  Rome 
and  Naples,  producing  formally  composed  landscapes  with 
ruins,  of  the  approved  pattern.     He  returned  to  Italy  in 
1835  and  1843;  and  it  was  not  until  after  his  return  from 
the  third  visit  that  he  found  the  landscape  of  his  own 


68  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

country  to  be  worth  the  devotion  of  his  life.  That  is  to 
say,  he  was  nearly  fifty  years  old  before  he  fully  realised 
that  nature  was  beautiful  apart  from  the  glamour  that  his- 
tory threw  over  particular  scenes  and  places.  Nothing  is 
more  instructive  than  to  compare  his  work  before  1850,  or 
thereabouts,  with  his  later  work.  His  earlier  landscapes, 
often  little  more  than  "  views"  of  places,  are  hard  and  dry, 
and  the  sky  is  a  mere  background  to  the  scene ;  yet  they 
are  broad  and  simple  in  treatment,  show  much  sensibility 
to  the  play  of  light,  and,  towards  the  end  of  his  first  period, 
the  intimate  character  of  the  scene  is  not  destroyed  by  over- 
much elaborately  formal  composition.  The  later  work,  by 
which  he  is  best  known,  is  widely  different  from  this. 

We  have  seen  that  the  inspiration  of  the  English  Pre- 
Raphaelite  painters  was  drawn  from  literature,  and  that 
when  they  went  into  the  country  to  find  appropriate  scenes 
in  which  to  place  their  Lorenzos,  Ophelias,  and  other  charac- 
ters taken  from  history  or  poetry,  they  painted  the  land- 
scape with  hardly  less  than  scientific  exactness  and 
elaboration  of  detail.  In  their  biographies  and  reminis- 
cences we  read  little  or  nothing  of  music,  but  much  about 
history  and  legend.  It  was  quite  otherwise  with  Corot. 
Music  was  little  if  at  all  less  dear  to  him  than  painting. 
He  sang  as  he  painted,  he  anticipated  Whistler  in  making 
comparisons  between  the  two  arts,  was  regularly  to  be  seen 
at  concerts,  and  himself  played  the  violin.  Tradition  could 
not  for  ever  blind  him  to  the  visible  music  of  nature,  and 
when  at  last  he  saw  it,  the  rest  of  his  life  was  passed  in  the 
translation  of  nature's  harmonies  into  art. 

He  inevitably  selected  that  which  was  nearest  akin  to 
what  was  dominant  in  his  own  temperament.  Not  the 
rugged  strength  of  nature,  but  her  delicate,  fleeting  beauty ; 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       69 

not  the  insistently  obvious  splendour  of  autumn,  but  the 
tranquil  harmonies  of  spring  and  summer — in  brief,  all  that 
was  lyrical  in  nature  found  a  response  in  him. 

He  came  to  know  well,  or,  better,  to  feel  deeply  how 
large  a  share  the  atmosphere  had  in  the  playing  of  this 
music.  In  it  all  things — the  fields,  the  flowers  and  the 
trees,  and  the  streams  that  flowed  and  the  lakes  that  lay 
tranquil  amidst  them,  and  the  people  who  moved  about  or 
laboured  there — had  their  being.  The  sky  came  to  be  no 
longer  to  his  sight  and  feeling  a  mere  background,  a  vast 
overhanging  firmament;  it  was  close  at  hand,  around, 
amid,  the  nearest  objects,  and  thence  passed  away  into  the  \ 
illimitable  distance.  What  need  was  there  of  a  subject,  or 
of  unusual  effects  of  nature,  or  of  exceptionally  beautiful 
places,  to  one  to  whom  nature  spake  thus?  As  to  the 
prophet  of  old,  to  him  also  God  was  present,  not  in  the 
tempest,  the  fire  or  the  earthquake,  but  in  the  still,  small 
voice. 

By  what  means  did  Corot  express  the  emotions  that 
nature  awakened  in  him  ?  It  was  the  tranquil  moods,  the 
subtle  harmonies  of  nature  that  moved  him.  Bright  and 
varied  colour  clearly  had  no  place  here.  Sober  greens  and 
silvery  greys  were  colour  enough  for  him,  with  a  touch  of 
red — in  a  cap,  usually — to  be  felt  rather  than  seen,  giving 
value  to  the  quieter  colours  by  contrast.  And  he  showed 
his  sense  of  colour-music  by  subtly  varying  this  red  note  as 
the  greys  and  greens  were  warmer  or  cooler.  Any  one  of 
us  almost  could  say  also,  from  our  own  enjoyment  of  the 
moods  of  nature,  that  he  would  not  need  to  emphasise  form ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  M'ould^  and  did,  reduce  all  forms  to 
vagueness.  We  need  not  go  close  up  to  a  Corot  lioping  by 
minute  inspection  to  obtain  more  detailed  information.     By 


70  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

sucli  inspection  of  the  natural  scene,  by  clear  definition  in 
painting,  tlie  mood  would  be  lost.  We  say  that  Corot  anti- 
cipated the  Impressionists.  It  is  a  paradox,  but  it  is  true  : 
he  did  so  by  being  an  Impressionist ;  only  the  name  had  not 
then  been  coined,  and  those  who  became  known  by  the 
name  carried  impressionism  much  further  than  he  did. 
Lastly,  and  of  utmost  importance  to  liis  aim,  he  observed 
closely  and  subtly  rendered  the  varying  strength  of  light 
and  shade  at  greater  or  less  distances  from  the  eye — in 
technical  phrase,  he  paid  close  attention  to  values.  We 
might  say  that  he  composed  in  distances ;  into  his  pictures 
there  enters  the  charm,  the  poetry,  of  the  near  and  the  far- 
away, with  the  myriad  gradations  between  them.  Abso- 
lutely, of  course,  this  was  no  new  thing ;  what  Corot  did 
was  to  put  these  subtle  variations  in  the  first  place,  and  to 
subordinate  colour,  form,  and  detail  to  them.  So  he  played 
his  visible  music,  and  it  was  a  music  both  beautiful  and 
new. 

We  may  even  better  appreciate  its  peculiar  quality  by 
further  contrastmg  his  aim  with  that  which  Holman  Hunt 
and  Millais  were  pursuing  at  the  same  time  on  this  side  of 
the  Channel.  They,  as  we  found  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
by  painting  all  the  detail  they  could  see  as  they  looked  at 
what  lay  before  them  bit  by  bit,  made  no  allowance  for  the 
stereoscopic  action  of  the  human  eyes.  To  them,  as  painters, 
sight  meant  scrutiny,  intelligent  scrutiny,  recognition  of  the 
detailed  character  of  objects.  To  Corot,  as  painter,  sight 
was  emotional  rather  than  intelligent ;  it  was  feeling  rather 
than  perception.  He  looked  closely  at  nothing,  and  so 
obtained  the  effect  of  the  whole;  and  on  reflection  the 
reader  will  find  that,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  though 
he  may  be  neither  artist  nor  critic,  he  obtains  much  pleasure, 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      71 

indoors  and  out  of  doors,  in  exactly  the  same  way.  Corot's 
pictures  are  beautiful  in  themselves ;  they  have  also  enabled 
us  consciously,  and  therefore  more  fully,  to  enjoy  the  same 
beauty  when  we  see  it  in  nature. 

Though  Corot  was  born  before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  his  awakening  came  so  late  that  all  of  his  work 
that  most  is  the  revelation  of  himself  was  done  in  the  years 
which  those  of  us  who  are  not  yet  old  count  their  own  time. 
He  was  over  seventy-eight  years  of  age  when  he  died  in  Paris 
on  the  2 3rd  of  February,  1875.  Millet,  eighteen  years  younger 
than  he,  died  a  month  earlier  at  Barbizon.  The  child  of  the 
city  died  in  the  city ;  the  child  of  the  country  died  in  the 
country.  Corot  went  to  the  country,  and  found  there  a 
beautiful  idyl.  Millet  was  native  to  the  country,  knew  its 
life  from  the  inside ;  and  to  him  that  life  was  a  great  epic 
of  labour.  What  each  saw  and  felt  was  there  to  be  seen 
and  felt.  Millet,  indeed,  was  by  no  means  blind  to  the 
idyllic  beauty  of  nature,  as  we  can  see  from  many  of  his 
pictures — The  RainhoWy  for  example.  Nor  was  Corot  un- 
heedful  of  that  which  most  occupied  Millet's  thought  and 
feeling.  But  each  emphasised  what  most  strongly  moved 
him ;  and  the  two  men  were  complementary  to  each  other. 
From  the  one  we  get  grace  and  subtle  charm;  from  the 
other  elemental  simplicity  and  strength.  In  point  of  crafts- 
manship, of  skill  and  beauty  in  painters'  work,  it  must 
be  said  that  Corot  far  excelled  Millet,  who,  less  thoroughly 
trained,  used  his  tools  and  material  with  much  less  skill; 
and  reached  his  end  more  laboriously,  so  that  his  work,  in 
and  for  itself,  is  less  pleasant  to  the  eye. 

Both  of  them,  in  the  work  by  which  they  live  and  will 
live,  belong  to  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century; 
and,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  each  of  them  has  greatly 


72  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

influenced  the  after  course  of  art.    Corot's  influence,  indeed, 
we  liave  almost  immediately  to  begin  to  trace. 

Even  if  we  are  in  doubt  whether  Corot  should  be  regarded 
as  the  first,  or  the  only  forerunner,  of  the  Impressionists,  we 
may  surely  at  once  put  aside  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  assertion 
that  Impressionism  comes  to  us  from  Paris,  and  is  tainted 
with  the  profligacy  of  Parisian  life.  If  we  decide  that 
Corot  was  only  a  forerunner,  still,  as  Ave  proceed,  we  shall 
find  that  Impressionism  originated  with  and  therefore,  in 
any  adequate  sense  of  the  words,  comes  to  us  from  men, 
several  of  whom  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  Paris,  and 
whose  work  only  with  difficulty  found  acceptance  there,  and 
that  in  the  course  of  its  development  it  was  influenced 
both  by  English  landscape  and  by  English  art.  Tracing  it 
back,  there  is  no  break  through  the  work  of  Corot  right 
away  to  Constable,  and  as  we  follow  its  development  we 
shall  come,  I  think,  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  inevitable, 
and  that  it  has  been  and  is  a  valuable  addition  to  the  re- 
sources of  art.  This  may  be  admitted  even  by  those  who 
cannot  endorse  the  praise  of  its  most  enthusiastic  admirers, 
of  whom  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  one  in  order  to  find  in  it 
something  very  different  from  what  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  and 
others  chiefly  see  in  it :  incompetence  endeavouring  to  cover 
itself  under  fine  names  and  theories.  The  Impressionists 
saw,  and  eagerly  endeavoured  to  reproduce,  beautiful  effects 
of  light  and  atmosphere,  which,  up  to  their  time,  had  been 
either  wholly  overlooked  or  quite  inadequately  interpreted. 

A  small  oil-painting  by  Corot,  in  the  Moreau  collection  at 
the  Louvre,  of  ships  in  the  harbour  of  La  RocheUe,  painted 
in  1851,  carries  the  painting  of  atmosphere  to  the  point 
at  which  those  who  are  called  Impressionists  took  it  up. 
The  ships,  the  harbour-towers,  the  quays,  the  lighthouse, 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      73 

tlie  reflections  in  the  water,  are  all  painted  with  but  little 
definition.  Detail  there  is  none,  but  atmosphere  is  all-per- 
vading. If  we  turn  from  this  painting  to  works  by  Jong- 
kind  and  Boudin,  who  belong  to  the  next  generation  after 
that  of  Corot,  and,  like  him,  were  Impressionists  before  the 
name  was  coined,  we  see  at  once  that  they  came  under  his 
influence.  In  fact,  at  a  first  glance  one  could,  without 
incurring  much  blame,  attribute  the  picture  to  one  of 
the  younger  painters.  It  is  more  like  what  we  usually 
associate  with  them  than  what  we  usually  associate  with 
Corot. 

Johann  Barthold  Jongkind  was  a  Dutchman,  born  at 
Lathrop,  near  Rotterdam,  in  1819  ;  but  most  of  his  life  was 
sjjent  in  France.  Though  he  received  a  medal  of  the  first 
class  at  the  Salon  of  1852,  he  never  met  with  any  monetary 
success,  suffered  great  privation,  and  in  1891  died  utterly 
neglected  and  a  victim  to  alcoholic  excess.  It  is  the  old 
story.  Works  he  sold  for  a  few  francs  now  fetch  thou- 
sands. Men's  eyes  were  blind  then  to  the  subtle  efiects  of 
light  he  saw  and  recorded ;  and  landscapes  and  harbour- 
scenes,  of  little  interest  except  for  such  effects,  had  no 
attraction  for  the  picture-buying  public,  or  even  for  the 
critics.  Louis  Eugene  Boudin,  his  close  companion,  was< 
born  at  Honfleur  in  1824,  his  father  being  a  Havre  pilot  and 
his  mother  a  stewardess  on  her  husband's  boat.  He  himself 
began  life  as  a  cabin-boy ;  but  he  was  a  born  artist,  iTiade 
many  sketches  while  at  sea ;  and  when  his  father  settled 
down  on  shore  and  became  a  stationer  at  Havrgj'the  boy 
found  more  opportunities  of  following  his  l^ent.  He  was 
fortunate  enough  to  attract  the  attention  of  both  Troyon 
and  iMillet,  who  were  then  painting  for  a  bare  livelihood ; 
and  Courbet  also  found  him  out.     No  dissuasion  of  friends 


74  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

who  urged  upon  him  the  non-success  of  men  of  great  ability 
availed  to  turn  him  from  the  purpose  of  devoting  his  life  to 
painting.  An  allowance  from  the  Havre  Town  Council 
enabled  him  to  go  to  Paris,  but  before  long,  when  the 
allowance  was  exhausted,  he  was  struggling  with  poverty. 
As  with  Jongkind,  so  with  him  :  pictures  that  he  then  sold 
for  tens  of  francs  to  pay  for  the  bare  necessaries  of  living, 
now  sell  for  thousands.  In  1857,  having  returned  to  Havre, 
he  could  not  raise  sufficient  money  by  a  sale  of  his  pictures 
to  enable  him  to  return  to  Paris.  It  was  by  such  struggles 
as  these  that  Impressionism  became  possible ;  not  by  disso- 
lute student-life  in  Paris. 

Disappointed  in  his  hope  of  returning  to  Paris,  Boudin 
started  an  academy  of  painting  at  the  country  inn  of  St. 
Simeon  between  Honfleur  and  Villerville,  overlooking  the 
estuary  of  the  Seine,  and  the  place  became  a  famous 
rendezvous  for  artists  who  broke  with  the  old  traditions. 
But  neither  here,  nor  later  at  Trouville,  at  Havre,  and  in 
Paris,  could  he  meet  with  success.  Such  men  as  Courbet, 
Corot,  and  Alexandre  Dumas  might  laud  him  as  the  master 
of  the  skies,  but  tlie  public  would  not  buy  his  pictures.  In 
1870,  when  the  war  broke  out,  he  found  refuge  in  Brussels. 
Even  in  1888,  one  hundred  of  his  pictures  were  sold  by 
auction  in  Paris  for  £280,  a  sum  no  dealer  would  now 
accept  for  a  single  good  example  of  his  work.  At  last  he 
was  recognised.  His  Rade  de  Villefranche  was  purchased 
for  the  Luxembourg  in  1896,  and  he  was  made  a  member 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  Two  years  later  he  died.  Not 
wild  student-life  in  Paris,  but  hard  privation,  had  told  on 
his  strength ;  yet  he  passed  threescore  years  and  ten,  and 
was  at  his  easel  at  the  last. 

The  open  air  was  Boudin's  subject,  as  also  it  was  Jong- 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      75 

kind's.  Grey  was  the  prevailing  colour  in  his  pictures, 
wrought  in  well-nigh  an  infinity  of  subtle  variations,  and 
relieved  by  many  touches  of  warmer  colour.  His  Le  Pod 
de  Bordeaux  at  the  Luxembourg,  for  example,  is  silvery 
grey  in  its  general  effect,  but  the  funnels  of  steamers  and 
the  merchandise  on  the  quay  furnish  notes  of  green  and 
red  and  gold  that  give  quality  to  the  greys  and  vibration  to 
the  picture  as  a  whole. 

A  comparison  may  be  usefully  made  between  Boudin  and 
Constable.  The  latter  painted  in  oil  in  the  open  air 
on  canvases  as  large  in  size  as  those  he  intended  to  use  for 
finished  pictures.  When  he  had  realised  the  desired  effect, 
he  used  to  put  these  canvases  aside,  and  begin  on  fresh 
ones  in  the  studio.  The  incomplete  pictures  he  called  com- 
mencements. Any  one  who  will  compare  the  commence- 
ments with  the  finished  pictures  in  such  instances  as  The 
Glebe  Farm,  of  which  both  versions  are  in  the  National 
Gallery,  and  The  Hay  Wain  and  The  Valley  Farm,  of 
which  the  commencements  are  at  South  Kensington  and  the 
finished  pictures  in  the  National  Gallery,  will  find  that  with 
elaboration  of  detail  there  has  invariably  gone  loss  of  fresh- 
ness and  atmospheric  vibration.  Much  of  Constable's  best 
work  is  in  his  small  sketches.  One  is  reminded  of  Miiller's 
Eel  Bucks  at  Goring,  with  the  note  on  the  back  of  the 
canvas  :  "  Left  for  some  fool  to  finish — and  ruin,"  or  words 
to  that  effect.  This  is  no  new  thing,  of  course.  Every 
amateur  knows  how  much  better  are  his  sketches  than  the 
compositions  he  works  up  from  them.  Even  Claude's  Liber 
Veritatis  will  tell  the  same  tale.  Turner's  sketches  have 
something  that  his  elaborately  finished  drawings  have  lost. 
So  in  a  recent  exhibition  of  Boudin's  work  at  the  Leicester 
Galleries,  in  London,   where  in  two  instances  there  were 


76  FIFTY   YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

open-air  studies  and  also  studio  versions  of  the  same  sub- 
jects, the  latter  had  lost  in  atmospheric  quality  by  just  so 
much  as  they  had  gained  in  added  detail. 

When  I  said  recently  to  M.  Theodore  Duret,  one  of  the 
chief  apologists  of  Impressionism,  that  I  preferred  the  un- 
finished to  the  finished  work  of  Constable,  his  comment 
was  :  "  Exactly ;  but  thirty  years  ago  you  would  have  been 
laughed  at  for  saying  so."  An  English  landscape  painter, 
trained  in  the  Pre-Raphaelite  school,  and  for  many  years 
past  safely  in  the  haven  of  the  Royal  Academy,  could  not 
understand  this  preference  when  we  stood  together  before 
The  Glebe  Farm ;  and  he  disputed  the  suggestion  that  the 
less  finished  version  was  a  preliminary  study.  Evidently 
he  was  not  acquainted  with  Constable's  method  of  work. 
Elaboration  of  detail  may  increase  the  number  of  individual 
truths,  but  too  often  it  diminishes  truthfulness  of  effect. 
"What  the  picture  gains  in  parts  it  loses  as  a  whole.  Did 
not  even  Ruskin  realise  this  when  he  said  of  "  the  loose  and 
blotted  handling  "  of  David  Cox,  "  There  is  no  other  means 
by  which  his  object  could  be  attained ;  the  looseness,  cool- 
ness, and  moisture  of  his  herbage,  the  rustling  crumpled 
freshness  of  his  broad-leaved  weeds,  the  play  of  pleasant 
light  across  his  deep  heathered  moor  or  plashing  sand,  the 
melting  of  fragments  of  white  mist  into  the  dropping  blue 
above ;  all  this  has  not  been  fully  recorded  except  by  him, 
and  what  there  is  of  accidental  in  his  mode  of  reaching  it, 
answers  gracefully  to  the  accidental  part  of  nature  herself  "1 
The  aims  of  the  Impressionist  school  could  hardly  be  more 
felicitously  described.  "The  play  of  pleasant  light"  has 
been  pre-eminently  what  they  have  sought  to  record. 

Before  proceeding  to  discuss  severally  the  work  of  the 
painters  who  formed  the  Impressionist  group,  it  is  desirable 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       77 

to  say  something  more,  though,  as  yet,  in  general  terms, 
about  the  point  of  view  that  united  them,  and  also  dis- 
tinguished them  from  other  artists  who  were  their  friends 
and  allies,  and  also  from  those  who  were  their  irreconcilable 
opponents. 

They  carried  still  further  the  study  of  atmospheric 
effects  that  gave  its  charm  to  the  later  work  of  Corot.  He 
limited  himself  to  such  of  those  effects  as  enabled  him  to 
interpret  the  pensive  moods  of  nature  that  most  appealed 
to  him.  The  Impressionists  made  them  an  end  in  them- 
selves, subordinating  all  other  considerations  to  them.  Like 
the  work  of  the  Barbizon  school,  like  part  of  the  work  of 
the  English  Pre-Raphaelites,  tlieirs  also  was  a  return  to 
nature.  It  had  nothing  in  common,  however,  with  the 
realism  of  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais.  When  Monet  and 
Pissarro  were  in  London  in  1870,  they  were  attracted  by 
the  work  of  such  painters  as  Constable,  Turner,  Old  Cromc, 
and  G.  F.  Watts ;  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  they  say  nothing. 
They  were  attracted,  that  is  to  say,  by  work  which  their 
own  already  resembled  ;  only  they  were  already  singling  out 
for  special  emphasis,  almost,  indeed,  for  exclusive  attention, 
certain  aspects  of  nature  as  seen  by  the  human  eye,  which 
the  English  painters  they  admired  had  not  thus  particularly 
distinguished,  and  which  the  Pre-Raphaelites  almost  ignored. 

The  central  fact  upon  which  they  seized  was  that  which 
Corot  placed  in  the  forefront  of  his  art :  that  everything  we 
see  is  swathed  in  atmosphere ;  but  they  went  further  than 
Corot  in  observing  how  greatly  the  appearance  of  things 
varies  with  changing  atmospheric  conditions.  It  is  through 
these  changes  that  we  get  some  of  the  most  beautiful  natural 
effects  of  light,  colour,  and  tone.  Nature,  by  means  of 
them,  plays  the  most  varied  visible  music.     The  vibrations 


78  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

that  beat  upon  the  eye  please  or  displease  through  the  sense 
of  sight,  as  those  that  beat  upon  the  car  please  or  displease 
througli  the  sense  of  hearing.  AVhat  we  see  in  nature  is 
nearer  to  art  than  -what  we  hear.  Many  a  natural  scene 
approximates  closely  to  a  picture.  Natural  sounds  do  not  in 
the  same  way  approximate  to  music.  A  musician  does  not 
go  into  the  open  air  to  listen  for  suggestions  for  music ;  but 
a  painter  does  go  into  the  open  air  to  see  suggestions  for 
pictures.  And  by  this  I  do  not  mean  merely  that  he  goes 
in  order  to  paint  the  portraits  of  scenes  and  objects  the 
recognition  of  which  will  give  pleasure  to  those  who  see  his 
picture.  This,  of  course,  is  a  part  of  art ;  but  the  visible 
music  referred  to  above  is,  as  Corot  discovered,  independent 
of  such  interest ;  indeed,  it  is  independent  of  any  particular 
beauty  or  grandeur  of  scene  in  the  common  acceptation  of 
the  words.  There  are  exquisitely  subtle  variations  of  light, 
colour,  and  tone  in  the  most  ordinary  scenes.  This  was  the 
truth  and  the  beauty  that  the  Impressionists  singled  out 
and  pursued  with  zeal  born  of  feeling,  against  the  immediate 
authority  of  which  the  scorn  of  those  who  did  not  see  what 
they  saw  and  feel  what  they  felt  was  powerless.  They  had 
received  a  revelation,  to  which  they  could  not  but  bear  witness. 
And  because  they  persisted  in  testifying  to  what  they  had 
seen,  they,  like  Corot  and  Jongkind  and  Boudin,  had  to 
suffer  the  neglect,  and  even  the  contempt  and  derision,  of 
those  who  could  not  see  it. 

Some  who  do  not  merely  hurl  hard  words  at  Impression- 
ism maintain,  none  the  less,  that  its  contribution  to  the 
resources  of  art  has  been  of  little  importance.  Burne- 
Jones,  for  example,  who  seems  to  have  been  really  distressed 
by  its  increasing  influence,  said  of  the  Impressionist  painters  : 
"  They  do  make  atmosphere,  but  they  don't  make  anything 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      79 

else  :  they  don't  make  beauty,  they  don't  make  design,  they 
don't  make  idea,  they  don't  make  anything  else  but  atmo- 
sphere— and  I  don't  think  that's  enough — I  don't  think  it's 
very  much."  Still  it  is  something ;  and  even  if  it  had  to 
be  admitted  that  Impressionism  had  done  nothing  more  than 
quicken  our  feeling  for  the  beauty  with  which  the  changes 
in  the  atmosphere  clothe  the  world,  we  might  say  not  merely 
that  this  is  something,  but  that  it  is  much,  and  be  gratefid 
to  those  who  have  done  it  for  us.  "We  must  say  also  that  it 
is  not  exactly  good  criticism  to  complain  that  artists  who 
have  set  themselves  to  solve  a  particular  problem  have  not 
at  the  same  time  paid  equal  attention  to  other  sides  of  art. 
As  well  might  we  complain  because  the  navvies  who  have 
dug  railway  cuttings  and  raised  embankments  have  not  also 
laid  the  lines. 

The  Impressionists  have  opened  the  eyes  of  many  to  a 
beauty,  and  therefore  to  a  source  of  joy,  to  which  they  had 
previously  been  blind.  The  world  had  never  been  seen 
before  just  as  they  have  seen  it.  And,  even  if  they  have 
neglected  ideas,  design,  beauty,  and  much  else  that  is  of  the 
first  importance  in  art — this  will  have  to  be  discussed  later 
on— that  which  they  have  given  to  art  is  not  incompatible 
with  these  other  things;  and,  the  pioneer  work ]of  its  dis- 
covery being  accomplished,  it  can  be,  it  is  being,  perhaps,  in 
a  measure,  it  has  always  been,  pursued  along  with  these 
other  ends  of  art. 

One  of  the  oldest  of  the  group  of  painters  who  became 
definitely  known  as  Impressionists  was  not  merely  in- 
fluenced by  Corot,  but  became  his  pupil.  This  was  Camille 
Pissarro,  who  was  bom  in  1830,  at  St.  Thomas,  in  the 
Antilles,  his  parents  being  French  Jews.  At  an  early  age 
he  was  sent  to  France  to  be  educated.     At  the  age  of  seven- 


U 


8o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

teen  he  returned  to  St.  Thomas,  having  while  at  school 
received  sufficient  instruction  in  drawing  to  enable  him  to 
continue  his  own  art  education.  His  father  intended  for 
him  a  commercial  career;  he  wished  to  become  an  artist. 
The  usual  contest  between  business  and  art  ended  in  favour 
of  the  latter.  In  1855  he  returned  to  France,  and,  attracted 
by  the  work  of  Corot,  he  sought  that  painter's  advice  and 
help.  He  had  already  accustomed  himself  to  paint  direct 
from  nature,  and  Corot  confirmed  him  in  this  practice — 
indeed,  they  painted  together.  Corot,  at  this  time,  was 
passing  from  his  earlier  to  his  later  style,  and  had  not  yet 
become  famous.  It  was  not  because  he  had  a  great  reputa- 
tion, then,  that  Pissarro  sought  him,  but  because  he  was 
ahead  on  the  way  that  Pissarro  himself  wished  to  go. 
Pissarro  devoted  himself  to  landscape  painting  strongly,  in 
sober  greens  and  greys.  He  had  varying  fortune  at  the 
Salon,  but  was  oftener  accepted  than  refused.  In  1866  he 
became  acquainted  with  Manet,  and  passed  into  the  circle  of 
the  cafe  Guerbois,  which  included  Monet,  and  others  who 
were  to  become  known  as  Impressionist  painters.  His  land- 
scapes became  steadily,  almost  rapidly,  more  conspicuous  for 
truth  of  atmosphere  and  light. 

Claude  Oscar  Monet,  who  has  just  been  mentioned,  was 
born  in  Paris  in  1840,  and,  like  Pissarro,  was  the  son  of  a 
merchant,  whose  head-quarters  Avere  at  Havre ;  and  at  that 
great  seaport  the  future  painter  spent  his  youth.  He  early 
showed  a  strong  inclination  towards  art,  and  by  the  time  he 
was  fifteen  years  of  age  he  had  struck  up  a  friendship  with 
Boudin,  who  had  then  settled  in  Havre.  Again  there  was 
the  usual  struggle  between  business  and  art,  and  the  young 
Monet  showed  the  strength  of  his  determination  by  re- 
fusing the  offer  of  his  parents  to  purchase  his  exemption 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      8i 

from  military  service  on  condition  that  he  would  renounce 
art  as  a  profession.  Service  in  Algeria  injured  his  health, 
whereupon  his  parents  bought  him  out,  and  consented  to  his 
becoming  a  painter ;  and,  in  order  that  he  might  go  through 
a  regular  training,  they  sent  him  to  Paris  to  become  the 
pupil  of  Gleyre. 

This  was  in  1862.  A  year  of  academic  study  was  more 
than  enough  for  him,  and  the  following  year  saw  him  leave 
the  studio  of  Gleyre  and  come  under  the  influence  of  Manet, 
an  exhibition  of  whose  works  he  then  saw.  Painting  that, 
in  tone,  and  colour,  and  light  and  shade,  was  closer  to 
nature,  appealed  to  him  more  strongly  than  the  traditional 
methods  of  the  schools.  After  painting,  for  a  time,  figure- 
subjects  and  figures  in  landscape,  he  devoted  himself  wholly 
to  pure  landscape.  M.  Duret  notes  that  even  in  his  figure- 
subjects  it  was  the  costume,  rather  than  the  face,  upon 
which  he  spent  his  force  ;  so  that  the  transition  to  landscape 
was  an  easy  one. 

His  pictures  have  always  been  painted  entirely  in  the 
open  air,  face  to  face  with  the  subject ;  and  of  any  scene  he 
has  given,  not  a  literal  rendering  of  the  permanent  facts  of 
it,  but  the  effect  of  light  and  colour  under  which  he  saw  it 
when  he  set  himself  to  paint  it.  As  soon  as  the  transitory 
effect  had  passed  he  ceased  to  paint,  beginning  again  only 
when  the  necessary  atmospheric  conditions  repeated  them- 
selves. Landscape,  to  him,  has  meant  not  picturesque 
objects,  but  beautiful  eff'ects  of  light  and  colour;  and  he 
has  realised  the  permanent  facts  only  so  far  as  was  necessary 
to  a  record  of  the  fleeting  charm.  "  Under  these  condi- 
tions," says  M.  Duret,  "  Monet  became  able  to  fix  on  the 
canvas  those  fleeting  appearances  which  had  escaped  the 
older  landscape  painters  working  in  the  studio.     lie  pur- 


82  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

sued  so  closely  the  varied  effects  and  changes  that  take 
place  in  the  open  air  that  he  could  communicate  the  sensa- 
tions that  they  evoked.  His  sunshine  -vvarms;  his  snow 
makes  us  shiver." 

For  several  years  he  lived  at  Argenteuil,  on  the  Seine, 
painting  the  river-scenery  there  and  the  shrubberies  and  the 
flowers  in  his  garden.  The  siege  of  Paris  by  the  Germans 
drove  him  to  Holland,  and  from  Holland  he  passed  to 
England.  Here,  with  Pissarro  for  companion,  he  studied 
the  English  masters — Turner,  Constable,  Old  Crome,  and 
others — and  painted  in  the  London  parks  and  suburbs  and 
on  the  Thames.  Thus,  a  second  time,  French  landscape 
painting,  through  two  of  its  most  original  exponents,  came 
under  English  influence.  Just  before  writing  these  lines 
I  received  from  M.  Durand-Euel,  who  was  among  the  first 
supporters  of  the  Impressionists,  a  copy  of  an  article  in 
Le  GauloiSy  the  writer  of  which  says:  "Deriving  from 
Claude  Lorrain,  the  great  master  of  landscape.  Impression- 
ism has  learned  the  great  lesson  of  truth  that  was  so  bril- 
liantly taught  by  the  masters  of  1830,  and,  benefiting  by 
the  researches  of  a  Turner,  a  Constable,  a  Bonington,  it  has 
completed  the  earnest  and  noble  work  of  the  landscape 
painters  of  1830  by  fixing  on  the  canvas  the  subtle  and 
radiant  splendours  of  the  atmosphere."  Impressionism, 
clearly,  is  not  an  outcome  of  Parisian  studio-life. 

Not  only  the  English  landscape  painters,  but  also  English 
landscape  itself,  had  its  influence  on  these  temporary  exiles 
from  sunny  France.  They  found  even  the  smoky  haze  and 
fog  of  London  a  pictorial  asset.  The  article  from  which  I 
have  just  quoted  praises  Monet's  rendering  of  the  trans- 
parent beauties  of  the  Thames  mists.  The  damp  of  our 
island  climate,  the  varied  colour  of  the  London  buildings 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND    THEIR  ALLIES       83 

and  their  variety  and  irregularity,  and  the  frequent  fitful- 
ness  of  the  sunshine,  provide  the  artist  with  a  wealth  of 
subject  compared  with  which  the  cold,  formal  beauty  of 
Paris,  in  its  clearer  atmosphere,  is  poverty  itself.  So  the 
French  painters  returned  to  their  own  country  with  more 
sensitive  vision  than  they  had  previously  enjoyed. 

Like  Pissarro,  Monet  had  a  chequered  experience  at  the 
Salon.  He  first  exhibited  there  in  1865.  Manet,  who  saw 
the  two  marine  subjects  that  were  his  contribution,  sug- 
gested that  tlie  similarity  of  name  enabled  Monet  to  profit  by 
his  reputation.  Then  came  alternations  of  acceptance  and 
rejection,  followed,  as  his  individuality  of  style  developed, 
by  certainty  of  rejection.  After  1880  he  did  not  again  send 
to  the  Salon.  In  France  as  in  England — everywhere,  in- 
deed— art,  like  religion,  has  its  Protestants,  its  Noncon- 
formists, and,  but  for  them,  would  perhaps  not  wholly  die, 
but  at  the  best  would  linger  on,  like  one  who  in  his  dotage 
repeats  ever  the  same  things  in  the  same  monotonous  way. 
And  as  the  Nonconformists  of  religion  have  built  for  them- 
selves places  where  they  could  worship  as  seemed  to  them 
best,  so  the  Nonconformists  of  art  refused  admission  to  the 
exhibitions  controlled  by  those  who  obey  the  academic  law, 
have  held  their  own  exhibitions,  ."-nd,  after  experiencing,  for 
longer  or  shorter  periods,  derision  or  contemptuous  neglect, 
have  won  recognition  for  whatever  was  vital  and  of  en- 
during worth  in  their  art.  This  was  the  course  adopted  by 
Monet  and  his  fellow-Impressionists.  They  held  separate 
exhibitions  in  1874,  1876,  1877,  and  1879;  and  eight  exhi- 
bitions in  all  were  held  between  1874  and  1886. 

It  was  as  one  consequence  of  the  exhibition  of  1874, 
held  at  the  galleries  of  M.  Nadar,  in  the  Boulevard  des 
Capucines,  that  the  term  Impressionism  came  into  use.    The 


I 


84  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODE  UN  PAINTING 

thirty  exhibitors  called  themselves  La  Societe  anonyme  cles 
artistes,  peintrcs,  sculpteurs  et  graveurs.  This  was  too  long 
and  too  tame  for  one  of  their  critics,  who  coined  a  more 
pithy  title  with  the  help  of  a  picture  exhibited  by  Monet. 
This  was  a  view  in  a  harbour,  with  lightly  indicated  boats 
becoming  visible  through  a  transparent  haze  through  which 
gleamed  the  red  hued  sun.  To  this  picture  Monet  gave  the 
title :  Impression,  soleil  levant.  Thus  unwittingly  led  by 
one  of  the  exhibitors,  visitors,  to  the  exhibition  came  to  use 
the  term  Impressioniste,  and  within  a  few  days  a  contemp- 
tuously unfavourable  notice  of  the  exhibition  appeared  in 
Le  Charivari  under  the  heading,  Exposition  des  Impres- 
sionistes.  It  was  not  until  after  the  lapse  of  several  years 
that  the  name  came  into  general  use.  The  painters  to 
whom  it  was  applied  disowned  it  at  first  because  it  was  used 
only  in  a  depreciatory  sense.  Eventually,  however,  unable 
themselves  to  find  a  better  one,  they  adopted  it. 

By  common  consent  Monet  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
Impressionist  group.  He  is  purely  a  landscape  painter,  and 
it  has  been  therefore  easier  for  him  than  for  those  who  were 
also  figure  painters  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  effects  of  light.  I  say  interpretation,  not  record, 
because  the  work  of  the  Impressionists  has  never  been 
merely  realistic,  as  was  the  Pre-Raphaelitism  of  Holman 
Hunt  and  Millais.  Not  only  have  they  sought  to  register, 
not  the  mere  fact,  but  the  impression  made  by  the  fact  • 
they  have  also  stated  the  impression  itself  in  terms  of  art. 
Their  works  are  not  lacking  in  design;  neither  form  nor 
colour  has  been  accepted  just  as  nature,  which  by  no  means 
provides  us  with  ready-made  works  of  art,  has  set  before  the 
painter.  The  art  may  set  aside  the  old  conventions ;  but  it 
is  there,  none  the  less. 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      85 

We  have  seen  Monet  taking  refuge  first  in  Holland  and 
then  in  England  during  the  German  invasion  of  France,  and 
returning  to  his  own  country  strengthened  in  his  artistic 
faith.  Though  a  native  of  Paris  he  did  not  settle  down 
there,  but  lived  in  the  country,  first  at  one  place  and  then 
at  another,  in  the  valley  of  the  Seine.  From  Argenteuil  he 
passed  to  Vetheuil;  and  then,  in  1886,  he  took  up  what 
proved  to  be  a  permanent  abode  at  Givcrny,  near  Vernon, 
in  the  meadows  where  the  poplar-lined  Epte  is  near  to 
mingling  its  waters  Avith  those  of  the  Seine.  It  is  the  kind 
of  country  that  the  traveller,  with  lakes  and  mountains  in 
mind,  calls  tame ;  to  Monet,  with  his  subtle  feeling  for  light 
and  colour,  it  is  full  of  beauty.  When  the  poplars  in  the 
Seine  valley  were  being  cut  down  by  thousands  to  make 
palisading  for  a  Paris  exhibition,  Monet  bought  those  near 
his  own  house  to  save  them  from  threatened  destruction. 
His  chief  recreation  has  been  gardening,  and  his  own  garden 
has  provided  the  subject  of  many  a  picture.  His  art  is 
based  on  an  intimate  knowledge  and  love  of  nature.  When 
he  has  left  the  Seine  valley,  it  has  been,  in  addition  to  the 
visits  to  Holland  and  England,  to  find  change  of  scene  and 
of  mood  of  nature  on  the  northern  shores  of  France,  on  the 
Mediterranean  coast,  and  in  Norway. 

Of  the  greatest  significance  for  understanding  the  relation 
of  the  art  of  Monet  to  the  nature  with  which  he  has  lived  in 
constant  intercourse,  are  several  series  of  paintings  executed 
during  his  later  years.  For  each  series  he  had  only  one 
subject.  Thus  he  painted  twenty  pictures  of  two  haystacks 
in  a  neighbour's  field,  each  from  the  same  point  of  view, 
A  second  series  had  the  fagade  of  Rouen  Cathedral  for 
subject ;  a  third,  seven  of  his  Giverny  poplars ;  other  sub- 
jects have  been  a  morning  on  the  Seine,  water-lilies,  views 


86  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

on  the  Thames,  and  effects  on  the  water  of  liis  garden- 
pond.  In  all  these  series — in  fact,  in  all  his  pictures — the 
permanent  objects  were  not  the  only,  in  fact  not  the  main 
subject ;  they  were  rather  its  base  or  framework  only.  They 
may  be  compared  to  the  fountain  upon  which  are  artificially 
thrown  various  combinations  of  coloured  light.  Monet's 
real  subject  in  all  these  series  was  the  varying  effects,  on 
the  same  objects,  of  the  light  and  colour  of  nature.  The 
haystack  series  showed  seasonal  as  well  as  hourly  changes ; 
the  poplars  were  studied  through  the  changes  of  a  day,  from 
dawn  till  dusk.  In  each  case  the  form  was  only  sufficiently 
realised  to  support  the  light  and  colour,  and  was  more  than 
ever  subordinated  in  the  later  series.  Movement,  vibration, 
shimmer,  sparkle,  gleam,  glow — such  fleeting  things  were 
Monet's  true  subject.  With  hard  insistence  on  truth  of 
form  he  could  not  have  realised  them.  2s  or  to  this  end  was 
formal  composition  essential,  the  composition  that  is  indis- 
pensable when  the  painter  does  not  make  us  forget  the 
plane  of  canvas  or  paper  upon  which  his  picture  is  painted. 
How  little  of  such  composition  there  was  in  much  of  the 
best  work  of  David  Cox,  whose  central  aim  was  closely 
akin  to  that  of  the  Impressionists.  We  entirely  forget  the 
canvas  in  Monet's  pictures.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  about 
this  shortly. 

With  the  traditional  composition  went  also  the  traditional 
chiaroscuro  :  so  much  light  to  so  much  shade ;  and  the  prin- 
cipal lights  in  such  and  such  conventional  positions.  Away, 
also,  went  conventional  colour  and  artificial  half-tones. 
Monet's  palette  is,  in  brightness,  as  near  as  he  can  make  it, 
the  palette  of  nature,  though  he  does  not  use  it  merely  to 
imitate  the  actual,  non-pictorial  happening  of  colour  in 
nature. 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      87 

Let  us  now  look  more  closely  into  Monet's  impressionist 
methods.  If  the  reader  who  is  ignorant  of  the  methods  of 
modern  process-reproduction  will  examine  with  a  magnifying 
glass  the  illustrations  in  this  book,  he  will  find,  probably  not  a 
little  to  his  surprise,  that  they  are  impressionist  pictures. 
Wlien  an  ordinary  photograph  is  magnified  more  detail  can 
be  seen  in  it  than  can  be  seen  with  the  naked  eye.  A  mag- 
nified process-reproduction  becomes  meaningless ;  it  is  com- 
posed of  mechanically  placed  black  or  coloured  dots,  which 
to  ordinary  sight  become  buildings,  people,  trees,  clouds,  or 
what  else  is  to  be  represented,  but  to  the  aided  sight  are 
merely  dots.  An  impressionist  picture  consists  of  dabs  of 
paint  which,  at  a  given  distance,  look  like  buildings,  people, 
etc.,  but  when  seen  quite  close  look  only  like  what  they 
are—dabs  of  paint.  The  realistic  Pre-Raphaelite  painter's 
brush-strokes  follow  the  actual  forms  of  various  objects  as 
closely  as  possible.  The  nearer  we  go  to  the  picture  the 
more  detail  we  can  see.  When  we  go  close  up  to  an  im- 
pressionist picture  the  brush-strokes  are  so  unlike  the  object 
they  serve  quite  well  to  represent  when  seen  from  a  dis- 
tance that  it  is  quite  easy  to  feel  provoked,  as  if  we  had 
been  made  the  victims  of  a  trick.  I  never  closely  examine 
an  impressionist  picture  without  this  feeling  arising,  along 
with  admiration  of  the  knowledge  and  skill  implied  in  thes& 
meaningless  marks  becoming  so  full  of  meaning  when  seen 
from  farther  away.  There  are,  of  course,  plenty  of  pcece- 
dents  for  such  a  method  outside  the  Impressionist  school. 
Velasquez  used  it.  "  We  are  told,"  says  Redgrave,  "  that 
Gainsborough  got  far  from  his  canvas  while  painting  his 
portraits,  and  that  he  used  brushes  with  very  long  handles. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  he  so  placed  the  canvas  and  the 
sitter  that,  by  retiring,  he  could  view  both  at  an  equal  dis- 


88  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

tance,  and  then,  by  means  of  the  long-handled  tools,  he  was 
enabled  to  give  the  general  truth  of  tint  and  form  without 
descending  into  minute  details."  Let  these  two  precedents 
suffice  by  way  of  illustration.  Monet  only  bettered  the  in- 
struction of  some  of  his  most  distinguished  predecessors. 

But  why  not  give  more  detail  and  definition  ?  Because, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  in  discussing  the  work  of  Constable 
and  Boudin,  the  general  effect  cannot  so  well  be  obtained 
along  with  them.  When  we  get  the  general  effect  of  any- 
thing that  is  actually  before  us,  particularly  of  objects  at 
different  distances,  we  do  not,  as  has  already  been  observed, 
see  form  clearly,  but  confusedly,  owing  to  the  stereoscopic 
character  of  our  eyesight.  This  would  be  so  even  if  all 
objects  were  perfectly  motionless ;  but  this  they  rarely  if 
ever  are.  Oftener  than  not  most  of  the  things  we  see  are 
in  motion ;  and  even  if  they  are  not,  there  is  usually  play 
of  light  and  shade  upon  them.  Oftener  than  not,  also,  we 
ourselves  are  moving,  and  then,  relatively  to  us,  everything 
we  see  is  in  motion,  and  therefore  not  seen  distinctly.  Even 
if  we  are  standing  still  we  glance  from  point  to  point,  and 
this  is  sufficient  to  make  fixed  objects  have  some  appearance 
of  movement.  I  was  standing  recently  with  a  painter  in  a 
busy  London  street.  We  were  discussing  the  Impressionist 
School.  He  ridiculed  what  he  considered  to  be  their  ex- 
cessive zeal  for  representing  movement.  "Look  at  those 
buildings,"  he  said,  "  they  are  not  moving.  Yet  the  Impres- 
sionists would  blur  them  as  they  would  the  vehicles  and  the  • 
passers-by."  And  quite  rightly  so.  One  does  not  usually 
stand  in  the  street ;  the  upward  and  downward  movement 
of  walking,  in  addition  to  actual  constant  change  of  posi- 
tion, communicates  to  buildings  the  appearance  of  motion. 
Things  are  not  as  they  seem ;  they  seem  not  as  they  are ; 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       89 

and  to  paint  them  as  they  are,  actually  and  momentarily,  is 
not  to  paint  them  as  they  seem.  I  was  once  in  the  studio 
of  the  painter  just  referred  to — he  is  a  landscape  painter — 

with  another  landscape  painter,  who  said  to  him,  "  A , 

the  one  thing  your  pictures  lack  is  movement."  The  one 
thing  this  painter-critic  seeks  in  his  work  is  movement, 
though  sought  in  Constable's  way,  not  in  that  of  Monet 
and  his  fellows ;  the  other  painter  holds  strongly  to  design. 
Perhaps  we  may  be  allowed  to  enjoy  both  these  phases  of 
art. 

Monet,  then,  obtains  the  general  effect  of  landscape  by 
brush-work  that  ignores  detailed  truth  of  form.  Not  un- 
seldom  the  touches,  when  seen  even  from  the  requisite 
distance  to  get  the  general  effect,  are  obviously  hardly  even 
approximations  to  truth  of  form.  Still,  as  we  regard  the 
picture  as  a  whole,  not  examining  it  bit  by  bit,  we  do  get 
the  sense  of  movement,  of  vibration,  of  life.  I  am  writing 
with  a  small,  black-and-white  reproduction  of  his  La  Gren- 
ouilVere — a  river  bathing-scene — before  me.  The  water,  the 
boats,  the  trees,  the  people,  are  none  of  them  truthfully 
drawn ;  I  can  see  this,  looking  carefully,  when  several  yards 
away  from  what  is  intended  to  be  held  in  the  hand;  yet 
even  when  so  held,  the  reproduction  almost  produces  the 
illusion  of  one's  actually  standing  upon  the  river-bank  with 
the  scene  before  one. 

Again,  Monet  lays  side  by  side  touches  of  different  colours 
that  cannot  be  seen  individually  when  the  picture  is  looked 
at  from  the  intended  distance.  They  reach  the  eye  as  a 
single  hue.  This,  also,  is  no  new  thing ;  but  Monet  made 
a  new,  or  at  least  greater,  use  of  it,  through  which  his  pic- 
tures obtain  the  effect  of  vibrating  light  that  distinguishes 
them.     We  may  put  it  that,  in  this  case,  the  eye  sees  what 


90  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

it  cannot  distinguish.  It  may  be  argued  that  there  is  no 
warrant  for  this  in  nature.  But  we  are  concerned  here  witli 
effects,  not  with  facts.  All  that  we  want  to  know  is  whether 
or  not  this  method  enables  the  painter  to  give  on  canvas  or 
paper  the  impression  of  vibrating  light.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  does  so,  and  this  is  sufficient  justification  when 
it  is  this  effect  that  is  sought. 

In  another  respect,  also,  he  and  his  companions  and  fol- 
lowers have  departed  from  literal  truth  in  order  to  achieve 
their  end;  they  have  exaggerated  the  violet  in  shadows. 
Mr.  George  Moore  says  that  he  once  asked  Manet,  who 
adopted  this  method  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  why  he 
did  so,  and  that  the  reply  was,  "  One  year  one  paints  violet 
and  people  scream,  and  the  following  year  every  one  paints 
a  great  deal  more  violet."  People  scream  because  they 
cannot  see  the  violet  shadows  in  nature.  They  are,  in  fact, 
not  there.  "Why,  then,  put  them  on  the  canvas  %  Because 
the  appearance  to  the  eye  of  natural  shadoAvs  does,  by  con- 
trast, tend  towards  violet;  and  the  exaggeration  of  this 
appearance  on  the  canvas  does  increase  the  illusion  of  sun- 
light and  shade  there.  Has  not  the  reader  seen  in  the 
shop-windows  those  provoking  statuettes,  coloured  violet  in 
some  parts  and  bright  red  in  others,  which  present  com- 
pletely the  illusion  of  being  illuminated  from  one  side  by  a 
ruddy  light  %  This  is  a  vulgar  trick.  But  the  Impression- 
ists have  made  use  of  this  same  means  to  obtain  beautiful 
effects  of  light.  AVe  may  say,  paradoxically,  that  they 
attain  to  truth  by  the  way  of  untruth. 

I  am  reminded  here  of  an  essay  on  art  written  in  1874 
by  James  Hinton,  who  was  philosopher  as  well  as  man  of 
science,  surgeon,  and  philanthropist,  and  who,  though  num- 
bered neither  among  the  artists  nor  the  critics,  worked  out 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      91 

in  this  essay  a  theory  of  Impressionism,  actually  using  the 
name,  though  in  all  probability  without  any  knowledge  of 
the  work  of  the  French  painters— at  least,  the  essay  gives  no 
evidence  of  such  knowledge. 

He  says  that  in  looking  at  pictures  he  has  observed  that 
they  can  be  divided  into  three  kinds — one,  atrociously  bad 
because  the  drav/ing  has  not  an  accurate  resemblance  to  the 
objects  intended  to  be  delineated ;  another,  in  which  the 
objects  are  accurately  delineated;  and  a  third,  in  which 
they  are,  as  in  the  first  kind,  inaccurately  delineated,  and 
yet  the  general  impression  is  true.  To  the  first  two  he 
refuses  the  name  of  art.  Of  the  third  he  says  :  "  It  is  the 
art  of  doing  right  and  doing  wrong  together;  that  is  the 
thing  in  which  the  emotional  faculties  of  men  find  their 
truest  delight,  so  far  as  painting  goes — I  do  not  mean  to 
speak  of  other  arts.  Now  I  believe,  as  to  the  inexplicable 
charm  of  a  true  painting  upon  us,  which  it  produces  quite 
independently  of  its  subject  or  of  any  ideas  which  it  is 
designed  to  express,  which  we  feel  almost  more  purely 
wJien  there  is  nothing  in  the  painting  at  all,  and  when  un- 
romantic,  unsublime  subjects  are  sought  out,  because  then 
we  get  this  peculiar  charm  of  art  alone,  and  feel  it  by  itself 
there  is  a  magic  in  it,  a  rightness  and  a  wrongness  that 
fascinates  us — we  don't  know  Avhy,  but  we  know  this,  that 
it  is  true  to  nature."  Then  he  goes  on  to  say  that  we  know 
nature  to  be  infinitely  complex,  "  and  that  if  a  person  puts 
down  on  a  piece  of  canvas  simply  just  so  much  of  what 
presses  upon  his  eye  as  he  can  reproduce  upon  a  plain  con- 
tracted surface  with  extremely  gross  fingers,  as  compared 
with  the  delicacy  of  Nature's,  he  does  not  represent  Nature ; 
he  chooses  out  certain  parts  of  her,  and  gives  them  all  that 
belongs  to  them  as  far  as  he  is  able,  but  an  innumerable 


92  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

number  of  otlier  things  he  totally  leaves  out.  He  says : 
*  These  things  have  certain  rights  and  I  have  given  them.' 
But  in  giving  them  these  rights  he  has  left  out  an  immense 
number  of  things  which  he  could  not  put  upon  his  canvas. 
If  he  delineates  accurately  a  few  objects,  he  does  this  at  the 
expense  of  others." 

And  there  is  more  than  this.  "But  further,"  says 
Hinton,  "  nature  does  not  consist  merely  of  objects,  even 
supposing  he  [the  painter]  was  able  to  put  them  all  on  to 
his  canvas,  but  it  consists  of  objects  bathed  in  light,  and 
the  painter  has  to  paint  this  light  as  existing,  this  atmo- 
sphere which  bathes  them."  Yet  again,  Hinton  says  that 
science  represents  nature,  not  as  a  mere  aggregation  of  sepa- 
rate things,  but  "  as  a  constant  flux  of  forces,  a  constant 
process  and  series  of  changes,  in  which  it  can  recognise 
action  but  knows  nothing  of  substance.  Now  if  art  could 
be  true  to  nature  by  representing  a  destined  number  of 
things  side  by  side,  there  would  be  a  conflicting  representa- 
tion. ...  As  it  is,  it  so  happens  there  is  really  no  fight, 
because  Art  has  simply  outstripped  Science,  making  before 
her  her  own  affirmations.  For  Art,  whenever  it  becomes 
art  at  all,  denies  all  things,  and  treats  things  with  the 
utmost  imaginable  unconcern,  making  them  to  be  anything 
which  suits  some  other  truth  of  nature.  .  .  .  Art  repre- 
sents nature  as  a  process.  The  only  pictures  which  your 
eye  can  regard  with  true  complacency  or  judge  as  being  true 
to  nature  show  that  photographic  representation  of  objects 
is  not  the  secret  of  art." 

This  analysis  of  art  principles  by  one  of  the  most  pene- 
trating of  modern  thinkers  is  surely  of  great  value  in 
relation  to  our  immediate  subject.  It  is  all  the  more  signi- 
ficant  as   coming   from   one   who,    as  already  said,  was  a 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      93 

specialist  neither  in  art  nor  in  art-criticism.  It  seems  to  me 
not  merely  to  justify  the  work  of  the  Impressionists,  and, 
indeed,  much  other  work  the  same  in  general  motive  if  not 
in  particular  method,  but  also  to  suggest  a  wide  and  fertile 
field  for  art-work  in  the  future.  I  venture  to  quote  one 
more  passage  from  the  essay  :  "I  have  looked  at  pictures  a 
good  deal,  in  order  to  make  them  tell  me  what  were  the 
rules  and  what  the  limits  by  which  and  up  to  which  the 
painter  might  deviate  from  accuracy  in  his  drawing,  and  I 
came  to  this  conclusion — that  there  were  no  rules  and  no 
limits ;  that  he  might  deviate  in  any  way  and  to  any  ex- 
tent ;  that  there  need  be  no  shadow  of  resemblance  between 
the  patch  of  colour  and  the  object  it  is  supposed  to  stand 
for.  The  painter  seems  to  act  with  absolute  license,  yet  we 
know,  of  course,  that  he  obeys  an  absolute  laAV.  What  is 
the  law?  It  evidently  has  no  relation  to  the  thing.  The 
only  law  laid  upon  a  painter  is — that  his  sacrifice  of  the 
object  shall  be  one  that  nature  gives  him  a  right  to  make ; 
that  he  shall  make  it  for  her  sake  and  not  for  his  own ;  the 
sacrifice  shall  not  be  wanton,  but  for  the  sake  of  something 
else.  The  departure  from  accuracy  must  be  a  sacrifice  of 
one  claim  to  another." 

How  thin  and  superficial  beside  this  deep  and  far-reaching 
analysis  is  the  following  saying  of  Burne-Jones,  apropos  of 
the  Impressionists :  "  I  think  that  nothing  short  of  perfect 
finish  ought  to  be  allowed  by  artists ;  if  unfinished  pictures 
become  common  we  shall  arrive  at  a  stage  of  mere  manufac- 
ture, and  the  art  of  the  country  will  be  degraded."  May 
we  not  say  that  the  term  manufacture  is  much  more  appli- 
cable to  the  picture  finished  to  the  last  detail  than  to  the 
picture,  not  really  unfinished,  but  sufficiently  finished  for 
the  end  that  the  artist  has  in  view  ? 


94  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Another  saying  of  Bume-Jones's,  already  quoted,  may  be 
tested  with  reference  to  Monet's  work.  He  said  that 
though  the  Impressionists  made  atmosphere,  they  did  not 
make  beauty,  design,  or  idea.  Now  Monet's  work  is  beauti- 
ful to  me,  not  merely  because  atmospheric  effects  are  in 
themselves  beautiful,  but  precisely  because  he  did  "  make 
design."  His  pictures  are  no  mere  collections  of  badly- 
drav/n  objects  placed  just  where  he  happened  to  see  them. 
Though  he  has  worked  face  to  face  with  nature,  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  he  has  arranged  to  suit  his  own  purpose  what 
has  been  before  him.  Where  there  has  been  no  reason  to 
the  contrary  his  pictures  are  as  beautifully  designed  as  those 
of  the  classical  landscape  painters,  and  in  the  same  way. 
What  reason  could  there  be  to  the  contrary?  The  very 
cogent  one  that,  whereas  the  classical  designer  is  thinking 
chiefly  of  the  plane  of  his  canvas,  Monet  has  sought  to 
forget  it  and  to  suggest  the  infinity  of  planes,  reaching  to 
the  utmost  bound  of  vision,  in  the  scene  before  him.  His 
design  goes  into  the  picture,  not  across  it.  Yet  even  then, 
lateral  design,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  is  not  excluded,  it  is 
merely  subordinated  to  the  main  purpose  of  the  picture.  In 
the  picture  already  referred  to.  La  Grenouillere,  the  boats, 
and  a  little  landing-platform,  are  so  arranged  as  to  draw  the 
eye  towards  a  little  island  with  people  on  it  almost  in  the 
centre  of  the  picture ;  they  do  this  as  well  as  aid  in  pro- 
ducing the  illusion  of  space.  In  his  pictures  of  poplars,  to 
be  mentioned  again  hereafter,  the  trees  on  the  bank  of  the 
winding  river  form  a  beautiful  rhythm  of  lines.  And  ex- 
amples might  be  multiplied.  The  existence  of  design  has 
been  denied  merely  because  it  has  not  been  of  the  conven- 
tional kind. 

Again,  Monet  has  designed  in  colour.     Here  also  painting 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       95 

in  the  open  air  has  not  meant  mere  acceptance  of  what 
patches  of  colour  were  in  the  scene  before  him.  Perhaps 
even  Hohnan  Hunt  and  Millais  did  not  quite  make  this 
mistake ;  but  they  went  nearly  all  the  way  to  it,  with  the 
result,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  much  in  their  pictures 
escapes  from  the  design  in  them.  In  Manet's  pictures  there 
is  a  harmonious  play  of  colour  from  which  it  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  no  particle  escapes.  I  find  in  my  note-book 
this  entry  with  reference  to  his  Le  Dejeuner  at  the  Luxem- 
bourg :  "  Purple  greys  and  blues  and  grey-greens,  running  up 
into  warm  greens  and  yellows,  and  on,  through  the  quiet 
red  of  the  wall  in  shade,  to  the  scarlet  of  geraniums  and 
fuchsias."  This  is  a  prose  record  of  colour  the  beauty  of 
which  it  is  a  pleasure  even  to  call  up  again  before  one.  Of 
the  same  picture  I  have  another  note :  "  The  black  band 
and  ribbons  of  the  straw  hat,  hung  in  the  tree,  and  the 
dark  hue  of  the  tray  on  which  the  cofFee-pot  stands,  with 
the  strong  green  of  the  basket,  give  the  necessary  foil  to 
the  delicate  play  of  light  and  colour  in  the  rest  of  the  pic- 
ture." I  might  quote  similar  notes  of  other  pictures,  but  it 
is  needless.  Such  things,  of  course,  are  the  commonplaces 
of  art.  And  it  is  to  show  that  Monet  has  not  overlooked 
these  commonplaces  that  I  have  mentioned  them. 

We  find,  then,  design,  and  therefore  beauty,  in  Monet's 
pictures.  What  about  ideas,  which  Burne-Jones  also  denies 
to  the  Impressionists  1  Here,  of  course,  we  have  to  recollect 
that  Monet  is  purely  a  landscape  painter ;  and  we  need  not 
look  for  ideas  unless  we  give  the  word  a  wide  interpretation. 
If  we  do  so  interpret  it  we  shall  perhaps  conclude  that  he 
does  not  fail  in  this  respect,  having  felt  deeply,  and  subtly 
painted,  the  air  and  the  light  without  which  there  could  be 
nor  life  nor  beauty  in  the  world.     His  pictures  are  so  many 


96  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

lyrics  in  praise  of  the  wonder  and  beauty  of  what  is  not 
least  wonderful  and  beautiful  in  nature. 

One  word  more  before  we  end  these  general  remarks  on 
his  work.  It  may  be  said  that  even  in  effect  Monet's  work 
does  not  always  resemble  what  we  actually  see ;  and  in  this 
particular,  that  the  atmosphere  is  more  in  evidence  in  his 
pictures  than  it  is  actually  to  our  sight.  We  may  say  that 
he  represents  it  as  a  less  subtle,  a  less  transparent  fluid  than 
it  actually  is.  Understanding  that  art  is  not  nature,  is 
there  nothing  to  be  said  for  rhetorical  statement  in  art? 
Especially,  surely,  this  is  so  with  regard  to  the  atmosphere, 
as,  while  the  painter  can  only  appeal  to  the  sense  of  sight, 
we  do  actually  both  see — as  in  the  blue  of  the  sky  and  in 
haze  and  mist — and  also  feel  the  atmosphere  ;  we  feel  it  as 
the  wind  plays  upon  us,  and  as  we,  passing  through  it,  meet 
with  its  resistance.  We  may  say  that  in  this,  again,  Monet 
fulfils  Hinton's  condition  of  being  untrue  only  in  order  to  be 
more  true. 

Monet  has  lived  to  win  recognition  for  his  art,  and,  with 
it,  pecuniary  reward ;  but  for  years  the  struggle  was  a  hard 
one.  "  One  must  have  the  strength  for  such  a  fight,"  he 
has  said.  He  has  known  what  it  is  to  be  penniless,  and 
hardly  to  earn  a  mere  subsistence  by  selling  his  pictures  for 
four  pounds  each.  Now  their  value  has  increased  a  hun- 
dredfold, and  in  recent  years  his  income  has  risen  to 
thousands  not  a  few,  which  the  reader  must  take,  as  he  will, 
either  as  evidence  of  a  change  of  fashion  only,  or  of  some 
among  the  picture-purchasing  public  having  learned  to  see 
the  truth  and  the  beauty  of  Monet's  art.  And  still  he 
paints  and  gardens  at  his  home  in  the  Seine  valley. 

We  have  seen  Pissarro  as  the  pupil  of  Corot  and  after- 
wards as  the  fellow-exile  of  Monet  in  England  during  the 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      ^7 

German  invasion  of  France  in  1870.  When  he  returned  to 
his  own  country  he  settled  in  the  little,  but  historic  town  of 
Pontoise,  having  as  neighbours,  in  the  village  of  Auvers, 
only  four  miles  away,  two  other  painters — C(5zanne  and 
Vignon.  The  three  often  worked  together  and  exchanged 
ideas  about  art.  Pissarro  became,  in  one  respect,  almost  a 
blend  of  Corot  and  Millet.  He  had  Corot's  sense  of  the 
charm  of  simple  landscape,  though  he  came  to  treat  it  less 
ideally ;  and  his  interest  in  the  life  and  work  of  the  pea- 
santry approached  that  of  Millet,  though  remaining  subordi- 
nate to  his  interest  in  the  landscape. 

M.  Duret  says  :  "To  define  him  by  his  characteristic  trait, 
it  may  be  said  that  he  was  the  painter  of  rural  nature  and 
of  rural  life.  He  never  sought  for  rare  motives  in  nature, 
he  did  not  think  that  the  painter  ought  to  seek  out  excep- 
tional prospects.  The  places  that  went  straight  to  his  heart, 
where  he  found  the  most  intimate  charm,  were  such  as  can 
best  be  called  familiar :  the  sloping  ground  planted  with 
fruit-trees,  the  field  ploughed  or  bearing  the  harvest,  pas- 
ture-land, the  village  with  its  old  houses,  and  surrounded 
with  garden  plots.  This  rural  side  of  nature  was  as  much 
to  him  as  were  to  others  the  exceptional  beauties  that  they 
discovered,  and  which  they  set  themselves  further  to  com- 
pose and  to  improve.  He  wished  to  improve  nothing, 
restraining  himself  to  the  faithful  portrayal  of  scenes 
previously  held  to  be  the  most  common,  and  as  such 
despised  and  neglected.  To  him  they  seemed  in  nowise 
despicable ;  and  he  believed  that  art  was  latent  in  them  and 
could  be  drawn  from  them." 

But  we  have  to  say  again  of  Pissarro  as  of  Monet,  that 
though  he  never  idealised  his  landscapes  so  as  to  deprive 
them  of  the  intimacy  of  affectionate  portraiture,  yet  they 


98  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

are  not  lacking  in  design.  Our  illustration  shows  this.  And 
it  shows  also,  as  might  be  expected  in  the  case  of  one  avIio 
lived  with  nature  as  he  did,  that  any  neglect  of  form  was  no 
slight  to  nature,  but  that  sacrifice  of  one  truth  for  a  truth 
believed  to  be  higher,  which  we  have  already  discussed. 
The  summary  treatment  of  the  trees  on  the  right  in  our 
illustration  not  only  aids  the  atmospheric  effect,  but  also 
serves  to  take  the  attention  away  to  the  left  side  of  the 
picture,  to  which,  indeed,  the  retiring  perspective  of  the 
road,  the  figures,  the  more  vigorous  contrasts  of  light  and 
dark,  and  the  building  above  the  trees,  inevitably  attract 
us ;  and  here,  where  the  eye  is  likely  to  rest,  though  there 
is  no  close  rendering  of  detail,  there  is  more  suggestion  of  it. 

The  public  and  the  critics  cared  nothing  for  Pissarro's 
intimate  treatment  of  ordinary  scenes ;  they  saw  no  poetry 
in  them,  nothing  worthy  of  so  grand  a  thing  as  art ;  even 
when  the  country-side  was  seen,  as  he  saw  it,  and  showed  it, 
suffused  with  vibrating  light. 

He  devoted  himself  thus  to  painting  direct  from  nature, 
seeking  to  record  more  and  more  subtly  effects  of  light, 
going,  indeed,  at  one  time  to  the  very  extreme  of  technical 
experiment  to  accomplish  this  end,  until  he  had  reached  the 
age  of  seventy  years.  Then  an  affection  of  the  eyes,  while 
not  interfering  with  his  sight,  forbade  him  longer  to  paint 
in  the  open  air.  But  he  was  not  to  be  driven  into  retire- 
ment. He  simply  went  to  Rouen,  and  there  from  house 
windows  painted  the  streets,  the  cathedral,  the  bridges,  the 
quays.  Then  he  went  to  Paris  and  worked  similarly  there, 
and  lastly  to  Dieppe  and  Havre. 

It  is  to  such  men  as  he  that  we  owe  the  revelation  of  the 

beauty  in  our  modern  towns.     They  are  often  not  beautifid 

rchitecturally,  they  are  not  beautiful  as  a  whole  and  in 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES       99 

themselves.  But  there  is  beauty  to  be  drawn  from  them, 
even  though,  for  the  most  part,  they  be  commonplace,  dull, 
or  even  ugly  and  dirty.  Monet  and  Pissarro  had  discovered 
the  artistic  possibilities  of  London,  and  when  he  could  no 
longer  Avork  in  the  fields,  Pissarro  did  not  forget  the  lesson. 
His  town-scenes  vibrate  with  light  and  movement ;  detail  is 
sacrificed  to  general  effect;  but  even  in  Paris — one  might 
say,  rather,  in  Paris  especially — it  is  the  general  effect,  the 
movement,  the  sparkle,  the  vivacity,  that  count.  Looked 
at  closely,  most  of  the  buildings  are,  in  essential  features 
and  even  in  detail,  mechanical — even  if  well-designed — re- 
petitions of  each  other ;  and  to  study  them  closely  is  soon 
to  grow  weary.  In  seaport-towns  it  is  eminently  the  general 
picturesqueness  of  houses  and  shipping,  under  varying  con- 
ditions of  light,  that  we  enjoy ;  and  in  going  to  Dieppe  and 
Havre  to  paint  such  things  there,  Pissarro  was  obeying  a 
common  human  impulse,  as  well  as  a  sure  artistic  instinct ; 
and  he  was  proving  himself  a  follower,  though  one  who  had 
also  learned  much  in  the  meantime,  of  Corot,  of  Jongkind, 
and  of  Boudin. 

It  must  suffice  merely  to  mention  that  he  worked  also  as 
an  engraver  and  lithographer.  He  was  preparing,  when 
over  seventy- three  years  old,  to  paint  another  series  of  views 
of  Paris,  when  a  chill,  succeeded  by  internal  complications, 
ended  fatally. 

A  third  member  of  the  group,  Alfred  Sisley,  though  of 
English  parentage,  was  born,  in  1839,  in  Paris,  where  his 
father  carried  on  business.  A  business  career  was  intended 
for  him,  but  he  declared  for  art,  became  a  pupil  of  Gleyre, 
and  counted  among  his  fellow-students  Monet  and  Renoir. 
Like  so  many  of  his  contemporaries  he  modelled  his  art,  to 
begin  with,  on  that  of  Corot  and  Courbet.     The  war  of 


100  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

1870  ruined  his  father's  business,  and  death  soon  following 
disaster,  the  young  painter,  already  married  and  having 
children,  found  himself  dependent  upon  his  art  for  the  sub- 
sistence of  his  family  and  himself.  His  chances  of  success 
were  by  no  means  increased  by  his  adoption  of  the  Im- 
pressionist methods  of  his  friend  Monet ;  and,  in  fact,  he 
remained  a  poor  man  to  the  end  of  his  days.  In  1875  he 
offered  twenty  of  his  pictures  for  sale  by  auction,  and  they 
fetched  the  average  price  of  a  little  over  £i  each.  A 
similar  result  followed  the  offer  of  eleven  pictures  in  1877. 
Sisley  and  Renoir  used  to  get  meals  at  a  confectioner's — so 
many  meals  for  a  picture  !  Not  long  after  his  death,  which 
took  place  in  1899,  one  of  his  pictures  sold  for  over  seven- 
teen hundred  pounds. 

In  France  he  painted  chiefly  in  the  country  of  the  Seine 
and  the  Loing.  During  a  visit  to  England  in  1874  he 
painted  on  the  Thames,  at  Hampton  Court,  and  from  May 
to  October  of  1897  he  stayed  in  South  Wales,  painting 
there  coast  scenes  and  the  sea.  Notwithstanding  his  ill- 
success,  it  was  the  joyous  side  of  nature  that  attracted  him, 
the  fresh  beauty  of  the  springtime,  the  opulence  of  summer. 
The  brightness  of  his  colour  was  one  of  the  hindrances  to 
his  finding  favour  with  the  public  of  his  day.  His  tech- 
nique was  modelled  on  that  of  Monet.  Whereas,  however, 
Monet  and  Pissarro  devoted  themselves  in  at  least  the 
greater  part  of  their  work  to  the  country,  Sisley  chose  the 
suburbs  of  Paris,  and  showed  the  pictorial  content  of  the 
places  where  town  and  country  seem  to  be  battling  for  pre- 
eminence. A  view  up  a  quite  commonplace  suburban  lane 
becomes  beautiful  when  he  expresses  it  in  terms  of  sun  and 
shade ;  so  does  a  highway  when  it  becomes  un  effet  de  Neige. 
Ford  Madox   Brown,  one  recollects,  made  a  picture  of  a 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     loi 

Manchester  suburban  lane.  The  thing  is  common  enough 
now  ;  and  even  those  who  do  not  make  pictures  of  everyday 
town  and  suburban  scenes  still,  in  increasing  numbers,  see 
them  as  they  pursue  their  daily  work.  How  much  of  this 
added  pleasure  in  life  do  we  not  owe  to  the  Impressionists  % 

Paul  Cdzanne,  already  mentioned  in  connexion  with 
Pissarro,  was  born  at  Aix,  in  Provence,  in  1839.  He  was 
a  fellow-student  of  Emile  Zola ;  his  father  was  a  wealthy 
banker,  and  it  was  intended  that  he  himself  should  become 
a  lawyer ;  but  he  wearied  of  his  legal  studies,  abandoned 
them,  and  determined  to  become  a  painter.  In  Paris  he 
came  under  the  influence  first  of  Delacroix  and  then  of 
Courbet.  From  Courbet  he  passed  to  Manet,  and  then,  in 
1873,  he  went  to  live  at  Auvers,  there,  as  we  have  seen, 
came  into  close  companionship  with  Pissarro,  whom  he  had 
already  met  in  Paris,  and  became  a  ^lein  air  painter.  Up 
to  this  time  all  his  pictures,  even  his  landscapes,  had  been 
painted  in  the  studio.  He  had  vainly  presented  his  pictures 
at  the  door  of  the  Salon,  and  it  was  largely  on  this  account 
that  he  joined  the  Impressionists,  and  was  an  exhibitor  at 
their  first  exhibition  in  1874. 

He  had  never  gone  through  a  regular  course  of  training, 
was  unskilled  as  a  draughtsman,  and  his  works,  by  consent 
even  of  his  admirers,  depend  for  their  value  on  their  colour. 
Yet  some  of  those  who  can  accejDt  the  other  Impressionists, 
and  even  some  of  those  who  work  in  the  same  spirit  and 
manner,  shake  their  heads  when  they  come  to  Cezanne. 
M.  Duret  tells  an  amusing  story,  illustrating  the  diflicidties 
of  his  admirers  who,  he  says,  became  a  growing  nucleus, 
composed  of  artists,  connoisseurs,  and  collectors,  forming  a 
kind  of  sect,  penetrated  by  a  sort  of  fanaticism,  in  which  he 
was   placed   in  the  very  front   rank.     Herr  von  Tschudi, 


I02  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Director  of  the  National  Gallery  at  Berlin,  purchased,  in 
1899,  for  the  Gallery,  pictures  by  Manet,  Degas,  Pissarro, 
Monet,  Sisley,  and  Cezanne.  Whereupon  there  was  much 
heated  discussion.  The  Emperor  William  heard  the  noise, 
wished  to  know  what  it  was  all  about,  and  announced  his 
intention  of  visiting  the  Gallery  to  see  the  much-debated 
pictures.  The  Director  thought— and  M.  Duret  supports 
him — that  the  Cezanne  was  the  weakest  part  of  a  case 
which  the  Emperor  was  not  likely  to  think  very  strong  at 
the  best ;  so  he  removed  it.  The  Emperor  did  not  think 
much  of  the  Impressionist  works,  and  ordered  them  up  to 
the  second  floor.  When  he  had  gone,  the  Director  replaced 
the  Cezanne  with  its  companions !  M.  Duret  says  that 
when,  on  one  occasion,  he  told  this  story  in  Paris,  an 
auditor  said  that  an  emperor  could  not  be  expected  to  feel 
anything  but  horror  at  such  anarchist  painting  as  that  of 
Cezanne.  He  was  called  a  Communard  when  first  he  exhi- 
bited in  1874.  Such  epithets  almost  excuse  me  from  an 
attempt  to  describe  his  work.  I  might  almost  do  so,  how- 
ever, in  language  that  could  be  held  applicable  to  com- 
munism— they  are  formless  and  manifest  a  passion  for 
light.  In  his  private  life,  says  M.  Duret,  Cezanne  ''  is  a 
wealthy  citizen,  conservative,  Catholic,  who  could  not 
think  of  himself  as  suspected  of  being  an  insurgent,  and 
who  has  given  all  his  time  to  art,  leading  the  most  regular 
life,  and  entirely  worthy  of  esteem  !  "  Really  it  seems  as  if 
one  of  Mr.  George  Moore's  aldermen  had  strayed  into,  not 
merely  the  criticism,  but  the  practice  of  art,  and  shown  that 
his  kind  was  capable  of  reaching  the  very  antipodes  of 
Philistinism ! 

The     Impressionists     spoken     of    hitherto    have     been 
chiefly    or    wholly    landscape    painters.       Pierre-Auguste 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND    THEIR  ALLIES     103 

Kenoir  has  applied   the   new  methods  almost   entirely  to 
figure  subjects. 

He  was  born  in  1841  at  Limoges,  where  his  father  was  a 
tailor  in  a  small  way  of  business,  but  parental  desire  of  an 
increase  of  fortune  was  the  occasion  of  the  future  painter's 
being  taken  to  Paris  when  he  was  about  four  years  old. 
The  better  fortune  did  not  come.  Each  of  the  tailor's  five 
children  had,  as  soon  as  possible,  to  begin  to  earn  money, 
and  between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and  eighteen  the  young 
Auguste  worked  as  a  painter  on  porcelain,  and  hoped  to  get 
employment  in  the  manufactory  at  Sevres.  But  machinery 
was  invented  to  do  the  painting  that  hitherto  had  been 
done  by  hand,  and  he  had  to  find  another  occupation.  He 
became  a  painter  of  blinds,  and  in  three  or  four  years  had 
saved  sufficient  money  to  enable  him  to  enter  the  studio  of 
Gleyre,  there,  as  we  have  seen,  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
Monet  and  Sisley.  From  1864  to  1870  he  was  regularly 
accepted  at  the  Salon,  but  in  1872  and  1873  he  met  with 
the  fate  that  came  to  all  the  Impressionist  group  as  their 
individuality  in  treatment  of  light  and  colour  developed, 
and  in  1874  he  joined  them  in  the  first  separate  exhibition 
in  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines.  Here  his  La  Danseuse 
and  La  Loge  came  in  for  their  full  share  of  the  general 
ridicule  with  which  the  exhibition  as  a  whole  was  received. 
To  the  exhibition  of  1876  he  sent  eighteen  works,  and  in 
1877  he  exhibited,  amongst  other  pictures,  The  Swing,  and 
The  Danse  at  Monimartre,  or  Moulin  de  la  Galette,  both  of 
which  now  form  part  of  the  Caillebotte  collection  in  the 
Luxembourg  Galleries. 

Financially,  as  well  as  in  repute,  Renoir  fared  no  better 
than  his  companions.  Like  them  he  had  hard  v/ork  to 
make  both  ends  meet.     Sales  by  auction  brought  him  about 


104  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  same  return  as  they  brought  to  the  others — an  average 
price  of  about  four  pounds  a  picture.  He  resorted  to  por- 
trait painting,  and  this  both  kept  the  pot  boiling  and,  as  it 
happened,  obtained  for  him  admission  to  the  Salon.  He 
received,  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  friend,  commis- 
sions to  paint  the  portraits  of  Madame  Charpentier,  a  lady 
with  much  influence  in  literary  and  artistic  circles,  and  of 
Mademoiselle  Jeanne  Samary,  a  member  of  the  Comedie- 
Frangaise^  and  a  public  favourite.  Refusal  of  these  por- 
traits was  impossible,  and  they  were  »vell  hung  in  the  Salon 
of  1879.  Thereafter  he  was  generally  accepted  at  the 
Salon,  and  he  contributed  also  to  most  of  the  separate 
Impressionist  exhibitions. 

Though  Renoir  has  painted  landscapes,  he  has  been  above 
all  a  figure  painter,  and  it  is  chiefly  his  pictures  of  women 
and  children  that  dwell  in  the  mind.  To  this  work  he 
brought  the  landscape  methods  of  Impressionism ;  his 
people  live  amid  light  and  air,  which,  we  might  almost  say, 
are  as  living  as  the  people.  Sunlight,  sometimes  clear, 
sometimes  broken  with  shadows,  plays  upon  face  and  form, 
and  when  the  light  is  merely  diffused,  Ave  feel  the  presence 
of  the  air ;  his  people  must  be  breathing  it ;  as  they  walk 
or  dance,  it  will  eddy  and  swirl  about  them.  He  is  also  a 
colourist,  or  one  might  better  say  a  painter  of  variously, 
brilliantly  coloured  light.  His  colour  may  not  please;  it 
does  not  please  all  who  admire  his  work ;  but  he  is  certainly 
sensitive  to  colour,  and  uses  it  fearlessly,  not  shirking  the 
difficulty  of  combining  harmony  with  brilliance  and  variety. 
His  use  of  purple  for  shadows  was  one  great  offence  in  the 
eyes  of  the  orthodox  thirty  years  ago.  He  has  sought  to 
express  the  infinitely  varied  brilliance  of  nature  in  terms  of 
art.     The  colour  plays  upon  us ;  when  we  analyse  it,  when 


LA  LOGE 


A.    RENOIR 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  AILIES     105 

we  note  how  the  prevailing  colours  are  relieved  and  intensi- 
fied by  sparing  use  of  their  complementaries,  we  realise  that 
he  composes  in  colour  instinctively,  as  a  poet  finds  rhythm 
and  a  musician  harmonies  of  sound. 

But  though  he  is  thus  sensitive  to  light  and  colour,  his 
people  are  not  mere  screens  upon  which  effects  are  thrown. 
They  live,  and  live  individually.  The  choice  of  subjects  for 
portrait  painting,  especially  portraits  of  women  and  children, 
is  usually  too  much  governed  by  ability  to  pay  long  prices 
both  for  the  portraits  and  for  dress.  Renoir  loves  to  paint 
women  and  children  of  what  we  call  the  middle,  the  lower 
middle,  and  the  working  classes.  He  shows  us  the  ordinary 
people  of  Paris  as  they  are  ordinarily  to  be  seen  at  home 
and  in  the  places  of  public  resort.  In  the  houses,  at  the 
theatre,  in  the  streets,  in  the  gardens  of  the  Luxembourg, 
in  the  Champs  Elys^es,  we  are  constantly  seeing  Renoirs  in 
a  natural  state.  He  paints  no  problem-pictures ;  he  does  not 
look  at  the  dark  side  of  life.  His  people  are  in  a  normal 
condition,  if  to  be  normal  is  to  be  contentedly  happy. 
Madame  Charpentier  is  happy  to  be  with  her  two  daughters, 
and  they  to  be  with  their  mother,  with  each  other,  and  with 
the  big  dog  that  one  of  them  uses  as  a  seat.  The  young 
mussel-gatherers  are  happy  to  be  gathering  mussels.  Dancers 
are  happy,  whether  in  outdoor  dress  at  Bougival  or  in  even- 
ing dress  in  Paris.  The  boating  people,  who  are  talking 
after  their  meal  at  a  table  under  an  awning,  are — as  we  find, 
when  we  can  take  our  eyes  away  from  the  subtle  play  of 
light  and  colour  and  look  at  them  individually — enjoying 
themselves  just  as  we  all  enjoy  a  day  on  the  river  when  we 
get  the  chance  of  it ;  and  the  individuality  of  attitude  and 
expression  is  almost  startlingly  true.  We  envy  the  happy 
unconsciousness  of  the  girl  who  has  fallen  asleep  with  her 


io6  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

cat  on  her  knee ;  the  relaxed  muscles  tell  of  sleep.  We 
envy  the  painter  who  can  show  so  marvellously  how  the 
direct  and  the  reflected  light  plays  on  her  flesh,  and  on  her 
dress,  the  cat,  and  the  chair,  and  the  floor,  emphasising  in 
everything  its  peculiar  texture.  How  happy,  also,  are  the 
two  girls,  one  of  whom  tries  a  piece  of  music  on  the  piano, 
while  the  other  stands  by  her,  and  how  unafl'ectedly  natural 
they  are  in  attitude  and  expression.  Renoir  takes  us  into 
the  company  of  Parisians  who  are  not  *'gay,*'  but  happy; 
and  we  feel  the  happier  for  having  been  with  them. 

Several  women-painters  have  to  be  included  either  in  the 
Impressionist  group  or  amongst  its  allies.  Of  these,  Berthe 
Morisot  comes  certainly  within  the  group,  and  was  not  the 
least  interesting  member  of  it,  not  merely  on  account  of  her 
sex,  but  of  the  high  merit  of  her  work.  She  was  born  at 
Bourges  in  1841,  and  belonged  to  a  family  in  which  the 
pursuit  of  art  was  a  tradition.  Her  grandfather  was  an 
architect;  her  father  was  an  enthusiastic  amateur  who 
studied  in  the  icole  des  Beaux  Arts  and  travelled  in  Italy 
and  other  classical  lands  of  art.  Both  Berthe  and  one  of 
her  sisters,  Edma,  received  an  art  training.  In  1862  they 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Corot,  and  by  him  they  were  re- 
commended as  pupils  to  Oudinot,  a  painter  who  worked  in 
his  manner,  and  by  1864  they  were  both  exhibitors  at  the 
Salon.  Edma,  who  was  the  elder  of  the  two  sisters,  aban- 
doned painting  on  her  marriage  in  1868  ;  Berthe,  who,  as 
well  as  her  sister,  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Manet, 
continued  to  paint,  and  also  sat  to  Manet  for  several  of  his 
pictures.  Under  his  influence  she  began  figure  painting,  all 
her  earlier  work  having  been  landscape.  After  1873  she 
ceased  to  exhibit  at  the  Salon,  and  joined  the  independents 
in  their  first  exhibition  of  1874,  in  which  year  also  she  was 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      107 

married  to  Manet's  brother,  Eugene.  At  a  later  date  she 
adopted  the  methods  of  Monet  and  Renoir,  sacrificing  detail 
and  firmness  of  outline  in  order  to  place  her  figures  and  her 
landscape  within  the  atmosphere  and  to  irradiate  them  with 
light.  There  is  singular — womanly,  it  may  be  frankly  said 
— charm  and  grace  in  her  work.  Her  landscapes  worthily 
carry  the  Corot  influence  into  the  new  time  and  manner, 
and  in  her  figure  painting  her  young  girls  are  particidarly 
delightful.  One  might  search  the  world  of  art  through  and 
not  find  young  life  more  sympathetically  interpreted.  As 
we  look  at  her  pictures  we  wish  to  meet  these  children,  to 
draw  them  out,  to  have  life  made  better  for  us  by  their 
freshness  and  simplicity,  and,  at  times,  to  find  why  they 
look,  as  children  will  look,  so  gravely  earnest. 

Her  draughtsmanship  was  accomplished,  and  she  had  a 
fine  sense  of  colour.  Both  for  the  technical  quality  of  her 
work  and  her  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  nature  and  her 
subtle  interpretation  of  character,  she  well  deserves  the 
equal  place  she  holds  with  the  male  members  of  the  group. 
Frail  and  of  a  nervous  temperament,  she  died  in  1895  at  the 
early  age  of  forty-four. 

It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  such  a  general 
sketch  as  this  book  obviously  must  be  to  attempt  an  ex- 
haustive list  of  the  painters  of  any  school  or  country.  I  do 
not,  therefore,  curiously  inquire  wliether  or  not  I  am 
naming  all  those  who  in  a  full  enumeration  should  be  in- 
cluded in  the  Impressionist  group.  The  name  of  Guillaumin, 
another  of  the  landscape  j^ainters,  should  be  mentioned. 
For  the  rest,  it  must  be  enough  if  I  have  succeeded  in  show- 
ing what  were  the  aims  and  the  achievement  of  those  who 
were  most  prominent  in  the  movement.  Of  others  who 
have  variously  adopted  its  principles  there  will  be  something 


io8  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  be  said  hereafter.  I  have  now  to  turn  to  those  who, 
working  and  exhibiting  along  with  the  Impressionists,  and 
influencing  them  and  being  influenced  by  them,  are  still  not 
strictly  to  be  counted  as  of  their  number. 

First  among  these  must  come  Manet,  who  has  been  named 
already  more  than  once  or  twice,  and  who  and  whose  work, 
it  may  be  said,  ought  to  have  been  discussed  earlier.  My 
reason  for  leaving  him  so  long  is  that  I  wished  to  trace  the 
Impressionist  movement  without  confusing  it  with  other 
considerations. 

Edouard  Manet  was  born  in  Paris  in  the  year  1832.  His 
father  was  a  judge ;  the  family  Avas  legal  by  tradition.  He 
passed  through  a  regular  educational  course,  and  took  a 
degree  in  letters.  An  uncle  who  was  a  colonel  in  the 
artillery  taught  him  to  draw.  He  showed  marked  ability ; 
but  his  father  would  not  hear  of  his  becoming  an  artist. 
He  was  sent  on  a  voyage  to  Rio  de  Janeiro  as  a  distraction 
from  art,  but  to  no  purpose.  He  sketched  on  board  ship. 
Further  resistance  was  seen  to  be  useless,  and  in  1850,  at 
the  age  of  eighteen,  he  became,  as  we  have  already  seen,  a 
pupil  of  Couture.  Manet  must  have  felt  his  instruction  to 
be  valuable,  for  he  stayed  with  him  six  years,  acquiring  a 
strong  bent  towards  realism. 

This  apprenticeship  over,  he  set  out  on  his  travels.  In 
Holland  he  was  influenced  by  Franz  Hals — permanently,  as 
the  event  proved.  He  passed  to  Germany,  visiting  Cassel, 
Dresden,  and  Munich,  and  also  Prague  and  Vienna.  At 
Munich  he  copied  Rembrandt.  Then  he  went  on  into 
Italy,  to  Venice,  Florence,  and  Rome;  and  was  especially 
impressed  by  the  great  Venetians,  particularly  by  Titian 
and  Tintoretto,  whose  paintings  in  the  Louvre  he  copied 
after  his  return  to  Paris.     He  also,  with  more  important 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     109 

results,  copied  Velasquez,  and  the  great  Spanish  master's 
influence  on  his  work  became  very  marked,  and  was  streng- 
thened by  a  visit  to  Spain  in  1865.  Couture  liad  taught 
him  to  test  tradition  by  reference  to  nature;  realism  was 
impressed  upon  him  by  another  contemporary  master, 
Courbet ;  of  all  the  old  masters  whom  he  studied,  Franz 
Hals  and  Velasquez  influenced  him  most.  Each  of  these 
men  was  a  great  master  of  the  brush  ;  Velasquez,  by  com- 
mon consent,  the  very  greatest.  Each  was  a  colourist,  in 
the  sense  not  of  brilliance,  but  of  deep  harmony;  Velas- 
quez, again,  of  the  greatest.  Each  set  men  and  women 
upon  the  canvas  with  convincing  truth — Hals  with  the 
truth  of  external  appearance  and  passing  mood,  Velasquez 
so  that  what  life's  experience  has  added  to  what  came  by 
birth  and  breeding  seems  to  be  revealed,  and  the  finally 
formed  character  to  stand  naked  before  us  as  if  for  judg- 
ment. Such  were  the  men  from  whom  Manet  assimilated 
all  of  them  of  which  he  was  capable. 

Those  who  were  in  authority  soon  pronounced  against  the 
art  of  Manet  as  revolutionary.  Indeed,  it  must  have 
seemed  to  them  anarchic,  threatening  the  ruin  of  art  in  a 
welter  of  license.  The  tradition  derived  from  the  Italian 
Renaissance  then  held  sway  over  artists,  critics,  and  the 
general  public.  Long  use  had  made  the  artificial  seem 
natural.  Contact  with  life  and  nature  was  regai-ded  as  an 
unholy  thing.  The  art  practised,  taught,  and  admired  in 
Paris  concerned  itself  with  anything  rather  than  the 
country  around  Paris,  the  look  of  the  city,  and  the  look  and 
the  life  of  the  people  in  it.  Delacroix,  who  treated  his- 
torical subjects  with  an  approach  to  realism,  was  regarded 
as  a  dangerous  innovator.  Courbet,  who  carried  realism 
still  further,  and  pictured  the  life  of  his   own  time,  was 


110  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

accursed;  he  knew  not  the  classical  law — nay,  Avorse,  he 
deliberately  broke  it.  Corot's  idyllic  interpretation  appealed 
in  vain  to  those  who  could  see  and  yet  were  blind. 

At  the  Salon  of  1859  Manet's  Absinthe  Drinker  was 
rejected;  but,  in  1861,  two  pictures  by  him,  a  double  por- 
trait of  his  father  and  mother  and  a  vivacious  study  of  a 
Spanish  guitar  player,  were  accepted,  and  for  the  latter  he 
actually  received  honourable  mention.  This  did  not  prevent 
the  picture  he  sent  to  the  next  biennial  exhibition  from 
being  rejected.  It  was  the  Di-jeuner  sur  VHerhe,  which  now 
hangs  in  the  Moreau  collection  at  the  Louvre.  The  Salon 
of  1863  is  remarkable  in  the  history  of  French  art,  because 
the  large  number  of  rejections,  which  included  Avorks  by 
such  men  as  Harpignies,  Jongkind,  Cazin,  J.  P.  Laurens, 
Pissarro,  Fantin-Latour,  Legros,  Manet,  and  Whistler,  led 
Napoleon  III  to  grant  permission  for  the  opening  of  another 
exhibition,  which  received  the  name  of  Salon  des  Refuses.  In 
1865  the  authorities  of  the  Old  Salon,  warned  by  the  conse- 
quences of  their  wholesale  rejections  in  1863,  Avere  more 
catholic ;  and  they  admitted  Manet's  Olympta,  which  noAv 
hangs  in  a  prominent  place  in  one  of  the  large  galleries  of 
the  Louvre. 

It  is  necessary  to  say  something  about  the  subjects  of 
these  pictures.  The  Dejeuner  sur  VHerhe  represents  tAvo 
men,  in  modern  dress,  seated  on  the  grass  near  a  river-side. 
By  them  is  also  seated  a  Avoman  entirely  nude,  her  clothing 
lying  on  the  ground  Avitli  the  basket  of  bread  and  fruit  of 
Avhich  the  picnic-lunch  consists.  Beyond  this  group  another 
Avoman,  only  partially  dressed,  is  standing  up  to  her  knees  in 
the  river.  The  tAvo  men  are  eagerly  engaged  in  conversa- 
tion. In  the  Olympia^  an  anaemic-looking  Avoman,  com- 
pletely nude,  is  lying  on  a  couch  facing  the  spectator;  a 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES      iii 

ncgress  has  entered  the  room,  bringing  her  mistress  a 
bouquet  of  flowers ;  a  black  cat  which  has  come  in  with 
her  stands  at  the  foot  of  the  couch. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  to  Manet  himself  these  pictures 
Avere  but  technical  experiments ;  he  merely  wished  to  ob- 
serve and  render  human  flesh  under  various  conditions  of 
light.  This  can  be  done  without  giving  off'ence  or  causing 
discomfort  to  the  most  sensitive.  But  even  enthusiastic 
admirers  of  Manet's  art  find  it  necessary  to  mention  these 
pictures  more  or  less  apologetically.  They  were  more  than 
an  experiment ;  they  were  a  challenge.  Manet  knew  they 
would  give  off'ence.  To  think  otherwise  is  to  think  him  a 
fool.  The  Italian  masters  had  painted  similar  subjects ; 
every  one  admired  such  things  when  they  had  come  from 
the  hand  of  Titian  or  Giorgione*  Manet's  contemporaries 
painted  the  nude,  but  in  a  conventional  way,  minimising  if 
not  wholly  avoiding  off'ence.  His  Dejeun&i'  sur  VHerhe  is 
his  uncompromising  modern  equivalent  for  Giorgione's  Con- 
cert Champstre,  his  Olympia  is  his  equivalent  for  Titian's 
reclining  Venus.  There  is  no  need  to  discuss  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  challenge.  Perhaps  it  lacked  even  more  than 
good  taste  and  wisdom.  So  did  others  of  Manet's  works, 
thus  making  possible  such  charges  as  have  often  been  made 
indiscriminately  against  the  French  realistic  painters.  All 
that  need  be  said  further  is  that  such  pictures  become  his- 
torical documents,  and  though  Mr.  George  Moore  says  that 
Manet  banished  the  subject  from  art,  the  subjects  of  such 
pictures  as  these  are  likely  to  find  material  for  future  essay- 
ists on  the  social  and  ethical  problems  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  not  of  that  century  alone.  One  may  add, 
also,  that  it  is  not  a  little  hard  on  art,  somewhat  selfish  of 
the  average  sensual  man  and  the  apologist  of  art  for  art's 


112  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

sake,  to  grant  it  the  treatment  of  such  subjects,  and  to  deny 
it  the  treatment  of  others  which  may  certainly  be  called 
higher,  and  are  not  incompatible  with  technical  experiment 
and  accomplishment. 

Manet  did,  indeed,  paint  a  picture  of  angels  supporting 
the  body  of  the  dead  Christ,  which,  again,  we  find  appre- 
ciated as  technique,  and  also,  by  implication,  as  making  no 
appeal  to  religious  feeling.  There  is  a  famous  Entomhment 
by  Titian  in  the  Louvre,  of  which  Mr.  George  Moore  says 
that  all  Titian  saw  when  he  painted  it  was  "  a  contrast — 
a  white  body,  livid  and  dead,  carried  by  full-blooded,  red- 
haired  Italians,  who  wept,  and  whose  sorrow  only  served  to 
make  them  more  beautiful."  Perhaps,  then,  Manet,  in  his 
picture,  was  explaining  how  the  Italians  of  the  full  Renais- 
sance regarded  sacred  subjects,  and  maintaining  that  they 
ought  always  to  be  regarded  thus.  If  so,  one  repeats  it  was 
not  kind  to  art. 

None  of  these  pictures,  of  course,  had  for  subject  any- 
thing that  Manet  could  not  study  and  paint  from  model  and 
object — his  dead  Christ  is  only  a  model.  Much  later  in  life 
he  painted  an  historical  subject — the  execution  of  the 
Emperor  Maximilian ;  but  this  was  an  exception.  He  did 
some  illustrations  for  Mallarme's  translation  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe's  "Annabel  Lee";  but  the  illustration  of  "A 
Kingdom  by  the  Sea  "  showed  an  ordinary  watering-place, 
with  a  nursemaid  and  children  on  the  sands.  Manet  had 
not  the  gift  of  imagination.  Like  Browning's  Lippo  Lippi, 
he  saw,  not  visions,  but 

The  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  lights,  and  shades. 
Changes,  surprises  ; 

and  certainly  he  saw,  also,  in  his  own  way,  "  the  value  and 
significance   of    flesh."     And   shapes,   colours,   lights,   and 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     113 

shades  lie  sought  ever  more  truthfully  to  record.  Tliis  was 
a  passion  with  him.  There  was  a  time  during  which  he  saw 
as  he  had  learned  from  Velasquez ;  there  came  a  time  when 
his  sight  became  more  independent.  But  a  large  part  of  the 
attraction  that  such  masters  as  Franz  Hals  and  Velasquez 
had  for  him,  as  compared  with  those  most  in  vogue  in  his 
time,  was  the  individuality,  the  directness  of  their  outlook. 

Not  that  Manet,  in  escaping  from  the  conventions  in 
which  art  was  too  closely  confined,  ceased  to  be  an  artist. 
The  realistic  side  of  our  own  Pre-Raphaelite  movement 
came  near,  at  least,  to  making  this  mistake.  Manet  only 
changed  the  methods  of  art  to  enable  it  more  fully  to  inter- 
pret life  and  nature.  The  conventional  colour  and  light 
and  shade  are  absent  from  the  Dejeuner  sur  VHerhe.  But 
the  figures  are  skilfully  grouped  and  are  pictorially  related, 
both  in  grouping  and  in  colour,  to  the  landscape.  Green 
and  brown  and  grey,  passing  into  black  towards  one  end  of 
the  scale,  and  to  a  warm  tint,  approaching  white,  in  the  flesh 
of  the  nude  figure  towards  the  other,  are  the  prevailing 
colours.  The  canvas,  as  a  whole,  has  a  sober,  cool  effect ', 
what  would  otherwise  be  monotony  is  relieved  by  the  blue 
of  the  woman's  dress,  and  by  the  restricted  use  of  quiet 
reds,  as  in  the  fruit  and  the  tie  of  the  man  to  the  right. 
Tradition  lingers  in  the  treatment  of  the  landscape,  and 
there  is  as  yet  no  approach  to  subtle  rendering  of  atmo- 
spheric effect.  Manet  was  consciously  treating  an  old 
theme  in  a  modern  way,  and  in  doing  this  he  could  not  but 
to  some  extent  suggest  the  old. 

In  the  Olympia,  again,  where  the  colour-scheme  is  in 
warmer  tones,  it  is  carried  through  the  picture,  and  has  no 
less  art  because  it  is  more  natural  than  the  conventions  of 
the  older  painters.     Again  the  traditional  proportions  and 


114  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

arrangement  of  light  and  shade  are  set  aside,  but  there  is 
only  a  change,  not  a  neglect  of  art.  A  lack  of  modelling, 
noted  when  the  picture  was  first  exhibited,  is  obvious,  and 
shows  that,  though  Manet  impatiently  resented  Courbet's 
criticism  to  this  effect,  he  had  still  something  to  learn. 

In  choosing  such  subjects  as  these  Manet  was  still  think- 
ing of  the  past,  even  if  in  the  way  of  challenge  and  protest 
against  its  excessive  influence.  The  Guitarero,  The  Fifer^ 
The  Bull-Fight  J  Tlie  Man  Drinking  ^  and  other  pictures  were 
plainly  reminiscent  of  Velasquez. 

It  may  safely  be  said  that  his  acquaintance  with  the  work 
of  Franz  Hals  made  him  see  more  readily  than  otherwise 
he  would  have  done,  that  the  stout,  jolly-looking  engraver, 
Belot,  comfortably  seated  in  his  arm-chair  smoking  his 
clay  pipe,  and  holding  his  glass  of  beer,  though  it  stands  on 
the  table — as  if  to  protect  it  from  the  disaster  many  a  glass 
of  beer  has  met  with  from  the  clothing  of  a  hasty  passer  by 
— was  a  good  subject  for  a  picture.  Every  one  says,  it 
cannot  but  be  said,  that  this  portrait,  to  which  the  painter 
gave  the  title  Le  Bon  Bock,  is  reminiscent  of  Hals.  It  is 
so  because  Hals  saw  truly,  and  because  he  painted  the 
portraits  of  men  and  women  not  distinguished  from  the 
mass  of  their  fellow-beings  by  any  particular  graces  of  form 
or  character.  The  average  man  and  woman  were  his  subject. 
Such  is  the  comfortable-looking  man,  so  carefully  guarding 
his  hon  hock,  whom  Manet  has  put  before  us,  with  close  ap- 
pearance of  actuality,  so  that  we  can  take  the  same  kind  of 
delight  in  the  picture  as  the  uninitiated  take  in  the  fiddle 
realistically  painted  on  the  Chatsworth  door.  But  the 
delight  goes  deeper  than  this.  Not  only  does  the  man 
almost  seem  to  be  there  before  us,  but  the  painter  has  so 
interpreted  the   character   of    the   man  that   we   get   into 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     115 

sympathetic  relation  with  him.  He  is  one  with  much  ex- 
perience— of  a  kind — of  life,  which,  fat  and  jolly-looking 
as  lie  is,  has  not,  does  not  now,  give  him  all  he  craves  for. 
Good  humour  is  obvious,  but  in  and  about  the  light  there 
plays  a  shade.  Those  who  are  born  to  trouble  know  that 
here  is  one  of  their  kith  and  kin.  This  is  no  Laufjhing 
Cavalier — though  him,  also,  we  are  glad  to  have.  Manet 
has  gone  deeper  than  Hals  was  wont  to  go.  Nor  was  the 
portrait  painted  as  the  portraits  of  Hals  were  painted.  Not 
one  or  two,  but  over  eighty  sittings  are  said  to  have  been 
given  before  the  canvas  was  held  to  be  complete.  Manet, 
in  fact,  took  endless  trouble  with  his  work,  and  through 
this  labour  became  a  consummate  v.^orkman.  So  far  as  he 
was  an  Impressionist  it  is  clear  that  Impressionism  and 
careless  workmanship  are  not  synonymous. 

Whether  he  or  Monet  is  to  be  considered  the  founder  of 
Impressionism  may  be  left  as  a  point  in  dispute.  He 
actually  applied  the  word  "impression"  to  his  own  work. 
After  he  had  been  excluded  from  the  collections  of  French 
Art  in  the  Universal  Exhibition  of  1867,  he  held  a 
separate  exhibition  of  his  own  pictures,  which  he  put  for- 
ward as  sincere  works,  and  said,  "  It  is  the  effect  of  sincerity 
to  give  a  painter's  works  a  character  that  makes  them 
resemble  a  protest,  whereas  the  painter  has  only  thought 
of  rendering  his  impression."  It  was  in  1870,  while  paint- 
ing in  the  open  air,  that  he  was  first  so  strongly  affected  by 
the  effects  of  light  and  atmosphere  which  the  Impressionists 
have  set  themselves  to  render,  and  which  afterwards  entered 
largely  into  his  work.  We  need  not  discuss  precedence  in 
point  of  date.  Monet's  name  must  always  be  more  closely 
associated  with  Impressionism,  in  the  sense  understood  here, 
than  that  of  Manet,  because,  painting  always  in  the  country 


Ii6  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  the  open  air,  and  living  and  working  so  many  years 
after  Manet's  death,  Monet  has  been  the  leader  of  the 
Impressionists,  Avhether  or  not  he  was  the  first  clearly  to 
apprehend  and  exalt  into  a  principle  that  after  which  others 
had  been  dimly  feeling. 

Manet  was  a  Parisian.  What  is  meant  by  this  may,  for 
our  immediate  purpose,  be  expressed  negatively  by  saying 
that  he  was  not  a  Puritan.  He  was,  apart  from  his  art,  an 
average  man  of  the  Parisian  world.  There  is  much  in  that 
world  that  the  average  Englishman  does  not  like — we  think 
of  Matthew  Arnold's  word — lubricity.  Let  us  say  the 
Englishman  is  right.  Still,  the  work  of  a  Parisian  painting 
life  as  it  is  in  Paris  may  be  good  art,  and,  at  least,  has 
actuality.  One-half  Paris,  however,  can  criticise  the  other 
half ;  and  Manet's  pictures  were  not  always  rejected  at  the 
Salon  as  bad  art,  but  as  bad  morals,  and  likely  to  induce  bad 
morals.  Such  was  the  fate  of  Nana.  Herr  Muther  says  of 
Manet's  Parisian  studies,  and  of  this  picture  in  particular : 
"  In  tender,  virginal,  light  grey  tones,  never  seen  before,  he 
depicted  in  fourteen  pictures  exhibited  at  a  dealer's  the 
luxury  and  grace  of  Paris,  the  bright  days  of  summer  and 
soirees  flooded  with  gaslight,  the  faded  features  of  the  fallen 
maiden  and  the  refined  cliic  of  the  woman  of  the  world. 
There  was  to  be  seen  '  IS'ana,'  that  marvel  of  audacious 
grace.  Laced  in  a  blue  silk  corset,  and  otherwise  clad 
merely  in  a  muslin  smock  with  her  feet  in  pearl-grey  stock- 
ings, the  blonde  woman  stands  at  the  mirror  painting  her 
lips,  and  carelessly  replying  to  the  words  of  a  man  who  is 
watching  upon  the  sofa  behind."  Another  writer  praises 
the  technique  of  the  picture,  and  says  that  the  subject  was 
harmless  enough.  The  authorities  at  the  Salon  rejected  the 
pictui'e.     Quite   right,    we  say,  from  our  average  English 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     117 

point  of  view.  Yet  does  any  one  ever  cry  for  the  rejection 
at  the  Royal  Academy  of  portraits  of  women  who  are,  per- 
haps, of  impeccable  conventional  morals,  yet  are  most 
expensively  dressed  and  bedecked  with  jewels,  notwithstand- 
ing the  Christian  injunction  against  riches,  and  insistence  on 
tlieir  evil  power  1  Millais  was  an  Englishman,  and  he 
painted  the  portraits  of  those  who  could  afford  to  pay  many 
hundreds  of  pounds  for  the  distinction ;  and  he  made  the 
return  he  got  in  money  one  test,  at  least,  of  real  success  in 
art.  Manet  was  a  Parisian,  and  he  painted  Nana^  and  A 
Bar  at  the  Folies-Bergeres.  But  Paris  did  not  mean  only 
this  to  him.  Boating  may  be  taken  to  represent  the 
Parisian  holiday-making  on  the  sea,  and  is  as  wholesome  as 
any  English  yachting  picture.  By  the  way,  M.  de  la 
Sizeranne,  in  his  criticism  of  English  painting,  blames  our 
artists  for  often  letting  the  edge  of  the  frame  cut  off 
awkwardly  the  figures  in  their  pictures,  and  says  that  they 
often  do  not  use  canvas  large  enough  for  their  subjects.  In 
this  picture  of  Manet's  we  have  a  fragment  of  a  boat,  a 
fragment  of  a  sail,  and  a  fragment  of  a  girl.  The  legs  of 
the  man  who  is  steering  the  boat  are  only  not  cut  off  by  the 
frame-edge  because  they  are  hidden  behind  the  girl's  dress. 
Spring  :  Jeanne,  is  a  charming  picture  of  a  girl  walking  out 
in  the  sunshine,  the  play  of  light  being  the  chief  motive  of 
the  work.  Manet  accepted — perhaps  he  never  had  any 
alternative — the  life  into  the  midst  of  which  he  was  born, 
and  used  his  art  to  interpret  it.  His  pictures,  therefore,  will 
be,  for  the  future,  historical  documents. 

How  true  this  is  already  of  one  of  his  pictures  here  repro- 
duced, Le  Concei't  aux  Tuileries  sous  le  Second  Empire.  The 
reproduction  suffices  to  show  that  the  picture  is  an  impres- 
sion.    There  is  the  indistinctness  that  movement  gives ;  the 


Ii8  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

picture  has  the  air  of  actuality.  Here  is  all  the  bustle  of  a 
crowd.  The  scene  has  been  taken  in  as  a  whole ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  has  been  looked  at  pictorially,  not  analytically.  A 
colour-scheme  runs  through  the  picture.  The  prevailing 
colours  are  black,  gold,  and  green  ;  and  there  are  notes  here 
and  there  of  olive  and  dull  red.  The  half-century  that  has 
nearly  elapsed  since  the  picture  was  painted  has  brought, 
needless  to  say,  change  after  change  in  costume.  In  this  the 
picture  becomes  historic.  Then  some  of  those  who  seem 
almost  to  live  before  us  are  historic  personages.  Here  are 
Offenbach  and  his  wife,  Baudelaire,  Theophile  Gautier, 
Fantin  Latour,  Manet  himself,  and  others.  Manet  did  bring 
art  into  closer  touch  with  nature  and  life  and  the  actual  ap- 
pearance of  things. 

The  reproduction  of  the  portrait  of  Mademoiselle  Eva 
Gonzales,  who  was  a  pupil  of  Manet,  is  a  happy  illustration 
of  one  side  of  his  art.  It  is  admirable  both  in  action  and 
expression.  The  fair  painter  is  intent  upon  her  Avork,  yet, 
it  not  being  true  that  people  cannot  do  two  things  at  once, 
she  is  either  interested  in  something  that  is  being  said  to 
her,  or  in  thoughts  of  her  oAvn  apart  from  the  work  she  is 
doing.  The  reproduction  shows  how  vivacious  is  the  por- 
trait, and  how  well  the  picture  is  composed ;  something  also 
can  be  seen  of  the  breadth  yet  subtlety  of  the  lighting. 
The  colour  is  quiet  yet  rich,  the  greys,  blues,  browns,  and 
sober  flesh  tints  are  forced  out  by  the  black  hair,  sash,  and 
vase  in  the  picture  within  the  picture,  and  relieved  by  the 
hues  of  the  flowers. 

A  portrait  of  his  sister-in-law,  Berthe  Morisot,  is  a  fine 
realisation  of  mood.  Fan  in  hand,  and  as  if  Aveary  after 
some  social  function,  she  has  throAvn  herself  doAvn  upon 
a    couch,    and    half   sitting,   half   reclining,  is   deep   in   a 


MLLE.  EVA  GONZALkS 


EDOUARD   MANET 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     119 

reverie  which  brings  upon  the  mobile  features  and  to  the 
eyes  that  see  an  inward  vision,  an  expression  of  thoughtful- 
ness  that  either  is,  or  is  near  to,  sadness.  It  is  a  portrait  of 
wliich  one  instinctively  uses  the  word  noble.  And,  again, 
not  only  is  the  picture  humanly  lovely  and  true,  it  is  also 
beautiful  as  art;  the  figure  and  its  accessories  are  well  placed 
within  the  area  of  the  canvas,  the  light  and  shade  are  well 
balanced,  the  colour  is  harmonious. 

Manet,  as  we  have  seen,  said  that  an  artist's  sincerity 
might  look  like  a  protest.  It  is  difficult  to  think  that  there 
were  not,  at  times,  in  his  art  protest  and  challenge.  Anyhow, 
he  met  with  bitter  antagonism.  He  felt  it  deeply.  He  had 
high  spirit,  and  the  opposition  spurred  him  on.  But  it 
also  exhausted  him,  and  he  died,  worn  out,  at  the  early  age 
of  fifty-one. 

Another  of  the  allies  of  the  Impressionists,  often,  indeed, 
counted  as  one  of  them,  is  Edgard  Degas,  who  was  born  in 
Paris  in  1834.  M.  Duret  says  of  him :  "  We  have  not  in- 
cluded Degas  among  the  Impressionists,  although  he  always 
exhibited  with  them,  and  is  to-day  generally  classed  with 
them;  but  this  is  because  the  name  Impressionist  has  become 
so  vaguely  used  as  to  lose  all  precision.  If  we  wish  to  be 
exact,  we  must  hold  Degas  apart  from  the  Impressionists ; 
his  origins,  the  nature  of  his  art,  distinguish  him  from 
them.  To  count  him  as  one  of  them  is,  indeed,  to  go  con- 
trary to  his  own  wish.  He  has  personally  always  refused 
the  title  Impressionist.  "^Mien,  at  the  exhibition  of  1887, 
those  who  really  showed  the  qualities  that  had  given  rise  to 
the  name  finally  adopted  it,  he  opposed  it  to  the  utmost 
Degas  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  Impressionists  but 
his  colour,  which  he  owes  to  them  in  part.  For  the  rest,  he 
has  never,  like  them,  systematically  painted  in  the  oi^en  air. 


120  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

which  is  distinctive  of  them,  and  his  technique  is  of  another 
kind.  He  has  his  point  of  departure  in  the  classical  tradi- 
tion, he  is  above  all  things  a  draughtsman.  His  ancestors 
are  Poussin  and  Ingres.  One  finds  in  his  early  days  an 
admirable  copy  of  The  Rape  of  the  Sahines,  and  designs 
executed  according  to  the  methods  of  Ingres.  His  own  first 
work  was  a  Semiramis,  conceived  in  the  pure  spirit  of 
historical  painting,  to  which  the  Impressionists  were  always 
indifferent  or  hostile." 

Degas  was  the  pupil  of  Ingres,  who  hoped  great  things  of 
him — hoped  that  he  would  be  faithful  to  and  exalt  the 
classical  tradition.  It  was  Degas  who  carried  Ingres  from 
his  studio  when  he  fell  down  in  the  fit  which  ended  only 
with  his  death.  As  another  instance  of  the  nature  of  his 
early  studies,  a  copy  may  be  mentioned  that  he  made  of  Hol- 
bein's portrait,  in  the  Louvre,  of  Anne  of  Cleves.  This  copy  is 
now  in  the  collection  of  M.  Durand  Ruel.  An  early  work  of 
his  was  an  Interior  of  an  American  Cotton-Broker'' s  Office, 
remarkable  for  its  minute  elaboration  of  detail.  This  was 
modern  enough.  His  first  contribution  to  the  Salon,  how- 
ever, was  a  pastel  having  for  its  subject  War  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  One  thinks  of  Millais,  beginning  as  an  emulator  of 
the  classical  Etty  and  ending  as  a  realist,  though  in  an 
English  way,  as  Degas  did  in  a  Parisian  way. 

The  change  in  art,  which  was  gathering  force  about  the 
mid-century,  so  strongly  influenced  the  work  of  Degas  that, 
after  1870,  he,  the  pupil  of  Ingres,  ceased  to  exhibit  at  the 
Salon,  and  joined  with  Manet,  Monet,  and  the  rest  in  their 
separate  exhibitions.  For  all  that,  as  it  has  been  said,  he 
never  became  strictly  an  Impressionist.  While  they  became 
devotees  of  light  and  atmospheric  effect,  draughtsmanship, 
action,  and  colour  are  the  most  conspicuous  qualities  of  his 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND    THEIR  ALLIES     121 

work.  The  Impressionists  came  early  under  the  influence  of 
Corot  and  Courbet.  Ingres  was  to  them  the  leader  in  a 
hostile  camp.  But  enemies  are  not  hostile  in  every  particu- 
lar ;  and  Degas  could  turn  away  from  the  Salon  and  join 
himself  to  the  Impressionists  without  wholly  adopting  their 
point  of  view — which,  after  all,  was  only  one  point  of  view 
— and  without  finding  it  necessary  to  forget  all  he  had 
learned  from  Ingres.  lie  did,  however,  become  a  colourist, 
and  he  put  aside  subjects  taken  from  legend  and  history,  to 
interpret  as  best  he  could  the  life  of  his  own  day. 

Like  Manet  a  Parisian,  his  outlook  and  his  choice  of 
subject  have  been  determined  by  his  environment.  As 
Millet,  the  peasant,  cared  only  to  interpret  the  life  of  the 
peasant,  so  Degas,  the  townsman,  has  cared  only  to  interpret 
the  life  of  the  town.  And,  it  has  to  be  said,  it  is  the  life 
with  which  *'  the  man  about  town "  becomes  familiar  that 
has  been  the  main  subject  of  his  art.  If  all  the  Impres- 
sionists and  their  allies  had  limited  themselves  to  such 
subjects  as  Degas  has  almost  invariably  chosen,  there  would 
have  been  much  justification  for  the  judgment  passed  upon 
Impressionism  by  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  and  others,  to  which 
allusion  has  frequently  been  made  here.  "  Impressions  of  a 
ballet  dancer,"  a  phrase  of  one  of  Ruskin's  pupils  that  comes 
to  mind,  was  probably  used  with  reference  to  the  work  of 
Degas;  but  we  must  have  regard  to  the  movement  as  a 
whole  ;  we  must  not  forget  Renoir's  many  renderings  of  the 
sweeter,  more  wholesome  side  of  Parisian  life;  and  when 
we  come  to  such  work  as  that  of  Degas'  American  pupil, 
Miss  Mary  Cassatt,  we  shall  find  to  what  irreproachable  uses 
his  methods  can  be  put.  Again,  we  have  to  ask  if  ho  has 
regarded  the  seamy  side  of  town  life  cynically.  Has  it  made 
him  bitter?    He   has  long  been   a  recluse.     Mr.  George 


122  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Moore  sees  cynicism  in  his  realistic  renderings  of  "what  is 
rather  the  naked  tlian  the  nude.  The  whole  question  of 
realism  in  literature  and  art  looms  up  before  us.  "VVe  recol- 
lect that  Zola  was  the  champion  of  Impressionism.  There 
is  an  idealism  that  will  not  walk  along  a  street  for  fear  of 
soiling  its  boots.  Is  there  also  a  realism  that,  sick  of  this 
unreality,  tramps  in  the  mud  by  way  of  protest  %  There  is 
certainly  a  monastic,  a  negative  ideal  of  goodness  to-day  that 
does  not  hide  itself  away  in  monasteries,  that  even  thinks 
itself  actively  good,  is  apparently,  and  often  in  intention, 
beneficent,  but  in  a  cold,  passionless  way.  It  is  so  respect- 
able as  to  get  itself  mistaken  for  real  goodness ;  but  it  is  evil 
and  a  root  of  evil.  It  was  recognised  and  labelled  nigh  two 
thousand  years  ago  by  one  whose  name  is  reverenced  by 
those  who  mistake  it  for  real  goodness.  English  art,  reflect- 
ing English  life,  has  honoured  it.  There  is  deeper  mischief 
in  this  than  in  Degas'  impressions  of  ballet-girls,  whatever 
may  have  been  his  motive  in  painting  them ;  for  however 
wonderful  his  skill,  however  beautiful  his  pictures  may  be  as 
art,  they  wring  from  us  the  cry,  "  0  the  pity  of  it ! " 

In  earlier  years  he  made  the  race-course  the  theme  of 
many  pictures.  Here  the  draughtsmanship  asserts  itself; 
his  colour,  though  harmonious,  has  not  come  to  the  full. 
The  horses  are  fine  in  action  and  in  animal  character.  The 
jockeys  and  the  spectators  are  convincingly  true.  The  mere 
drawing  of  an  open  carriage  becomes  a  miracle  under  his 
hand.     Yet  there  is  no  laboured  definition. 

The  theatre  scenes,  which  came  later,  are  marvels  of 
colour,  light,  gesture,  and  movement.  The  light  glares  and 
gleams,  the  colour  seems  to  tremble  and  change  before  us ; 
the  dancers  are  flitting  across  the  stage.  But  however  fugi- 
tive all  may  seem,  the  draughtsman  is  always  in  evidence. 


DANSEUSES  EN   SCENE 


EDGAR D   DEGAS 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     123 

The  splendour — the  barbaric  splendour  of  the  ballet,  shall 
we  say  ? — has  been  transferred  to  paper  or  canvas  so  as  to 
lose  little  of  its  actuality,  so  as  to  seem  hardly  a  motionless 
imitation  of  the  thing  itself.  Witness  the  picture  repro- 
duced in  colour  in  this  book,  which  is  a  triumph  of  realism 
in  terms  of  art.  Is  Degas  alive  to  the  degradation,  the 
horror,  that  too  often  underlie  the  glamour  and  the  beauty  % 
Does  he  wish  us  to  see  tliat  the  dead  are  there  ?  Is  there 
any  Hogartliian  purpose  in  his  work?  I  do  not  know. 
I  have  shown  the  reproduction  just  mentioned  to  not  a  few 
people,  and  not  only  to  those  with  a  narrow  range  of  experi- 
ence, and  the  degradation  obvious  in  the  faces  of  the  dancers 
has  almost  invariably  so  impressed  them  that  they  have 
hardly  been  able  to  bring  themselves  to  consider  the  skill 
of  the  work,  the  vivid  sense  of  movement,  and  the  beauty 
of  the  colour.  These  girls  are  human  moths,  heedlessly 
because  ignorantly  light-hearted,  singeing  not  the  body  only, 
but  the  spirit  in  the  flame.  I  will  not  moralise,  at  any  rate 
any  more  than  to  say  that  such  evil  as  this  will  not  be  ended 
until  the  average  of  that  which  accounts  itself  good  has 
been  lifted  to  a  higher  plane.  A  friend  once  remarked  to 
me,  after  we  had  witnessed  such  a  scene  as  Degas  has  often 
represented  so  vividly,  "  I  sometimes  wonder  if  it  is  right 
ever  to  seem  to  encourage  such  things."  Has  the  reader 
never  left  a  place  of  so-called  entertainment  with  a  sickening 
sense  of  loathing  1  Herr  Muther  says  of  Degas  :  "  He  was 
the  merciless  observer  of  creatures  whom  society  turns  into 
machines  for  its  pleasure — dancing,  racing,  and  erotic 
machines.  He  has  depicted  cruelly  the  sort  of  woman  Zola 
has  drawn  in  Nana — the  woman  who  has  no  expression,  no 
play  in  her  eyes,  the  woman  who  is  merely  animal,  motion- 
less as  a  Hindu  idol.    His  pictures  of  this  class  are  a  natural 


124  FIFTY   YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

history  of  prostitution  of  terrible  veracity,  a  great  poem  on 
the  flesh,  like  the  works  of  Titian  and  Rubens,  except  that 
in  the  latter  blooming  beauty  is  the  substance  of  the 
brilliant  strophes,  while  in  Degas  it  is  wrinkled  skin,  decay- 
ing youth,  and  the  artificial  brightness  of  enamelled  faces." 
It  is  even  worse  than  this.  These  women  are  not  always 
mere  machines;  they  are  not  without  expression;  there  is 
play  in  the  eyes — they  are  incarnations  of  evil.  The 
pictures  are  a  strange,  wild  medley  of  sensuous  beauty, 
of  sensuous  hideousness,  and  of  sensual  evil.  They  are 
appallingly  true.  They  wrap  nothing  up.  In  a  pastel  draw- 
ing, now  in  the  Luxembourg,  Degas  has  depicted  a  later 
stage  of  the  degradation — bedizened,  drink-soddened  creatures 
in  a  caf(5  on  the  Boulevard  Montmartre.  Through  the  win- 
dow we  see  the  stream  of  life  surging  along  the  street.  The 
scene  is  only  too  true. 

The  picture  by  which  he  is  best  known  in  England  is 
doubtless  The  Ballet  Scene  in  Robert  the  Devil,  now  in  the 
South  Kensington  Museum.  The  spectators  are  the  real 
subject  of  the  picture;  here  again  we  have  the  truth, 
whether  cynically  given  or  not.  These  black-coated,  well- 
groomed  men,  of  a  type  that  most  congregates  in  places  of 
entertainment  of  a  certain  kind,  are  the  counterpart,  the 
explanation,  of  the  women  in  the  cafe  at  Montmartre.  The 
works  of  Degas  are  historical  documents  of  human  in- 
humanity. 

Such,  and  so  varied,  was  the  return  to  nature  and  to 
life  in  the  art  of  France  that  was  almost  contemporary  with 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  in  England.  In  each  case 
there  was  more  than  a  return.  Nature  and  life  were  seen 
and  interpreted  with  an  intensity  hitherto  unreached. 
Neither  movement  is  as  yet  exhausted.     They  have  both 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     125 

brought  into  art  things  which  can  never  be  taken  from  it 
again;  though  not  every  artist,  not  every  school,  will 
necessarily  give  them  the  same  prominence.  Of  those  who 
have  carried  on,  or  in  varying  degrees  made  use  of,  the 
experiments  and  discoveries  of  the  French  Impressionists 
and  Realists,  we  shall  have  to  speak  in  a  later  chapter. 
We  turn  now  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  English  move- 
ment after  the  lapse  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood. 
But  before  doing  so,  a  word  should  be  said  about  an  influ- 
ence, hitherto  unmentioned,  that  affected  the  art  of  the 
French  painters,  and  has  since  been  more  widely  influential ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  art  of  Japan. 

Just  when  the  Pre-Raphaelites  were  fighting  their  battle 
in  England,  and  when  the  way  was  being  prepared  for  Im- 
pressionism in  France,  an  event  took  place  in  the  Far  East, 
the  full  significance  of  which,  for  art  and  for  much  besides, 
it  will  be  for  the  historian  of  the  distant  future  to  estimate. 
It  was  in  1853  that  Commander  Perry  entered  the  harbour 
of  Uraga,  in  Japan,  with  a  squadron  of  United  States  war- 
ships, and  did  not  leave  until  he  had  extorted  from  the 
Shogun  a  treaty  by  which  the  long  isolation  of  Japan  from 
the  rest  of  the  world  was  brought  to  an  end.  Treaty-ports 
were  opened,  and  many  comitries  soon  acquired  trading 
rights  and  formed  settlements  in  them.  In  1868  the  old 
feudal  system  of  Japan  was  destroyed,  and  the  country  soon 
set  out  on  that  career  of  development  in  the  course  of 
which  she  has  borrowed  largely  from  Western  civilisation, 
and  which  has  been  followed  with  so  much  success  as  to 
take  the  world  by  surprise. 

Japanese  art  had  influenced  Western  art  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  the  wonderful  porcelain  and  lacquer-work 
found  its  way  to  Europe.     The  opening  of  the  treaty-ports 


126  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

led  before  many  years  had  passed  to  the  arrival  of  Japanese 
paintings  in  Europe,  and  they  reached  Paris  just  at  the 
time  when  the  change  that  was  taking  place  in  art  assured 
to  them  appreciation  and  the  exertion  of  a  most  powerful 
influence.  We  have  traced  v/hat  may  be  called  the  natural 
history  of  the  change  ;  it  was  the  correction  of  old  theories 
by  a  fresh  return  to  nature  and  to  life.  The  originative 
masters  of  the  past  had  painted  as  they  saw  and  as  they 
felt.  Their  methods  were  valid  for  themselves  and  their 
own  time,  but  not  for  all  men  at  all  times.  Yet  they  had 
come  to  be  regarded  as  having  little  less  than  absolute 
authority.  Hence  the  revolt  whose  course  we  have  been 
following.  And,  just  when  the  revolt  was  in  full  progress, 
there  came  the  revelation  of  an  art  that  had  existed  for  cen- 
turies quite  independently  of  W\(^  art  of  the  West,  owing 
nothing  to  Greek  or  Koman,  to  Raphael  or  to  Michael 
Angelo,  but  yet  of  obvious  vitality  and  beauty. 

Painting  in  oil  has  been,  since  its  invention  by  the  A^an 
Eycks,  the  method  most  in  use  and  repute  in  the  West. 
This  method  is  unknown  in  Japan,  where  painting  means 
only  delicate  tinting  in  water-colour  or  Chinese  ink  on  paper 
or  silk.  To  an  art  with  only  such  means  as  these  at  disposal 
a  ponderous  realism  is  impossible.  Certainly  it  has  not  been 
attempted.  Japanese  painting  is  suggestive ;  it  is  content  to 
leave  much  to  the  imagination.  Yet  it  is  full  of  signifi- 
cance. What  it  has  it  uses  to  full  purpose.  Line  has 
never  been  made  more  expressive.  The  colour  is  not  only 
delicate,  but  harmonious  and,  at  need,  broad.  There  is 
endless  delight  in  the  interest  and  beauty  of  natural  facts, 
but  the  artist  by  no  means  thinks  that  his  duty  ends— or 
begins — with  a  mere  literal  transcript  of  them.  He  reserves 
full  liberty  to  express  them  in  terms  of  art.     He  is  con- 


THE  IMPRESSIONISTS  AND   THEIR  ALLIES     127 

cerned  not  merely  with  facts,  but  with  the  emotions  the 
facts  arouse  in  him ;  he  selects  from  the  infinite  multitude 
of  facts  before  him  those  that  will  express  his  emotion,  and 
being  an  artist  he  sets  down  even  these,  not  in  the  way  of 
bald  imitation,  but  rhythmically.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
attempt  even  a  mere  summary  of  Japanese  painting,  but  it 
should  be  said  further — the  importance  of  this  feature  for 
Western  art  v/ill  appear  hereafter — that  only  occasionally 
elsewhere  has  the  emotion  aroused  by  the  contemplation  of 
vast  spaces,  such  as  the  distance  over  a  level  landscape,  the 
void  of  air  between  the  spectator  and  a  distant  mountain, 
the  infinity  of  the  sky,  been  so  marvellously  interpreted  as 
in  Japanese  art. 

The  discovery  of  this  art  aroused  nothing  less  than  en- 
thusiasm among  those  who  were  already  committed  to 
innovation.  It  gave  them  authority  for  modifying  the 
tradition  that  had  come  down  to  them,  since,  while  it  owed 
nothing  to  that  tradition,  it  was  yet  expressive  and  beautifvd. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  a  similar  effect  has  been  pro- 
duced upon  certain  minds  as  to  the  question  of  authority  in 
religion,  by  the  obvious  power  of  Japanese  religion  and 
ethics  to  support  the  nation  in  such  a  stupendous  effort, 
both  physical  and  moral,  as  the  recent  struggle  with  Russia. 
However  this  great  question  may  be  decided — and  it  is 
matter  here  only  for  passing  reference  by  way  of  illustration 
drawn  from  another  region  of  life — there  can  be  no  question 
of  the  influence  exercised  by  Japanese  art  in  the  sixties,  and 
of  its  continued  influence  hitherto.  It  had  not  only  the 
liberating  effect  just  referred  to;  there  were  elements  in  it 
that  were  obviously  capable  of  immediate  adoption  into 
Western  art.  In  certain  matters  of  colour,  design,  sugges- 
tive interpretation,  fresh  outlook  on  life,  it  showed  itself  to 


128  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

be  ahead  of  Western  art  in  the  direction  in  which  that  art, 
under  the  hands  of  at  least  some  of  its  exponents,  was 
tending.  Monet,  Manet,  and  Degas  were  among  those  who 
studied  Japanese  art,  and  formed  collections  of  its  products ; 
and  to  its  influence,  in  part  at  least,  was  due  the  resolution 
with  which  they  put  aside  those  traditions  of  colour,  design, 
and  subject  which  they  felt  to  be  no  longer  for  them  adequate 
means  of  expression.  More  joyous  colour,  more  freedom  in 
design,  suiting  the  structure  of  the  picture  to  its  emotional 
purpose,  as  in  the  strictly  Impressionist  Avorks,  the  novel 
effects  of  perspective,  foreshortening  and  light,  obtained  by 
representing  their  subjects  as  seen  from  above — as  in  the 
case,  for  example,  of  many  of  Degas'  theatre  scenes — these 
and  many  other  things  were  suggested  by  the  art  that  had 
come  as  a  revelation.  The  nude  studies  of  such  men  as 
Renoir  and  Degas,  some  of  them  almost  if  not  wholly  re- 
pulsive to  those  with  whom  the  art  to  which  they  are 
accustomed  has  not  made  such  things  familiar,  receives  part 
of  its  explanation  from  the  art  of  Japan.  To  that  art 
reference  will  have  to  be  made  not  once  nor  twice  later  on, 
for  its  influence  on  the  movement  we  have  just  been  study- 
ing, here  briefly  noted,  by  no  means,  as  already  has  been 
said,  exhausts  its  significance  for  Western  art. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   COURSE   OF   PRE-RAPHAELITISM 

TTAVING  now  briefly  studied,  and  grasped,  as  I  hope, 
-*-^  the  leading  principles  and  characteristics  of  English 
Pre-Raphaelitism  and  French  Impressionism,  as  we  find 
them  in  the  works  and  in  the  avowed  opinions  of  those  who 
were  in  the  forefront  of  the  two  movements,  we  ought 
to  have  at  our  disposal  resources  of  comparison  and  contrast 
sufficient  to  enable  us  to  assess,  in  the  works  of  those  who 
have  been  influenced  by  them,  the  value  of  the  contribution 
made  by  each  of  the  movements  to  artistic  expression  and 
the  interpretation  of  nature  and  life. 

With  regard  to  Pre-Raphaelitism,  we  have  yet  to  con- 
sider the  greater  part  of  the  life-work  of  its  three  chief 
original  exponents,  Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  and  Rossetti,  as 
well  as  of  their  ally.  Ford  Madox  Brown;  for  we  have 
so  far  only  carried  the  story  of  the  movement  to  the  point  at 
which  some  measure  of  recognition  of  the  value  of  their 
innovations  had  been  won,  and  when,  owing  to  growingly 
obvious  diff'erences  between  the  members  of  the  Brother- 
hood with  regard  to  important  principles  of  art,  particularly 
with  regard  to  its  relation  to  nature,  the  continuance  of  the 
formal  Brotherhood  became  no  longer  possible.  For  what- 
ever diflferences  of  opinion  there  may  be  as  to  which  side  of 
the  movement  most  deserves  the  name  Pre-Raphaelite,  there 

K  129 


130  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

is  no  difference  as  to  its  having  had  two  sides,  the  one 
represented  by  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais,  the  other  by 
Kossetti.  In  one  respect  both  sides  were  alike  :  they  went 
to  history  and  literature  for  their  subjects.  This  is  equally 
true  of  Madox  Brown.  In  this  respect,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  English  movement  differs  from  the  almost  contemporary 
French  movement.  The  Impressionists  broke  away  not 
only  from  certain  traditions  of  art,  but  also  from  history  and 
literature,  and  went  to  nature  and  contemporary  life  for 
their  subjects.  Some  will  say  that  in  so  doing  they  were 
led  by  a  surer  artistic  instinct.  This  is  at  least  doubtful ; 
but  is  a  matter  for  subsequent  discussion.  All  we  need 
do  at  the  moment  is  to  note  the  fact  that  Holman  Hunt  and 
Millais  went  to  nature  only  to  find  a  setting  for  subjects 
taken  from  the  Bible,  from  Italian  and  English  history, 
from  the  poetry  of  Shakespeare  and  Keats.  The  only  two 
pictures  exhibited  by  Rossetti  as  a  member  of  the  Brother- 
hood had  the  life  of  the  Virgin  Mary  for  subject ;  but  the 
treatment  was  not  so  realistic  as  that  adopted  by  the  other 
two  for  their  works.  This  difference  between  his  work  and 
theirs  was  the  parting  of  the  ways ;  it  helped  to  make  the 
continuance  of  the  Brotherhood  impossible.  Millais  had 
accepted  Holman  Hunt's  view  of  the  relation  of  art  to 
nature.  The  latter  admits  that  no  teaching  of  his  could 
produce  the  same  effect  on  Rossetti  and  his  work. 

The  Brotherhood  had  no  formal  constitution,  and  was 
therefore  never  formally  dissolved;  it  merely  lapsed. 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt  says :  "  When  after  a  year  or  so  we, 
the  active  members,  saw  that  the  majority  of  the  seven 
only  talked — indeed,  often  in  misconception  of  the  objects 
of  our  Brotherhood — all  that  could  be  done  by  us  was  to 
discontinue  keeping  up  an  outward  show  of  combination  by 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITJSM  131 

ceasing  to  convene  or  attend  official  meetings."  It  is  some- 
what strange  that  only  the  minority  of  the  Brotherhood 
should  rightly  understand  its  aims;  but,  passing  this  with 
the  mere  remark,  it  is  clear  from  Mr.  Hunt's  statement  that 
the  Brotherhood  never  was  really  united  in  aim,  and  that 
soon  each  party  went  its  own  way.  Each  exercised  a  dis- 
tinct influence  and  had  a  distinct  following.  There  was  the 
Realistic  school  on  the  one  hand,  led  by  Hunt  and  Millais, 
and  the  Romantic  school  on  the  other  hand,  led  by  Rossetti. 
We  have  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  both,  and  will  begin  with 
the  realists,  taking  first  the  life-work  of  Holman  Hunt  and 
Millais.  Then  we  must  take  up  Madox  Brown  again,  his 
work  being  closely  allied  with  theirs.  Afterwards  we  shall 
turn  to  the  painters  whose  aims  were  mainly  determined  by 
the  work  of  these  older  men. 

Much  has  already  been  said  about  Holman  Hunt's  work 
as  a  whole.  We  have  seen  that  his  faithful  rendering  of 
detail,  almost  to  minuteness,  adopted  as  a  principle,  and 
made  more  emphatic  by  the  unusual  keenness  of  his  eye- 
sight, has  brought  many,  if  not  most,  of  his  pictures  near 
at  least  to  disintegration  in  design  and  colour.  Even  he  did 
not  fully  adhere  to  the  truthfulness  with  which  he  set  out. 
There  is  by  no  means  the  same  accurate  rendering  of  tex- 
tures in  his  later  as  in  his  early  work.  There  is  a  wide 
diff'erence  in  this  respect  between  such  pictures  as  Tlie  Ttco 
Gentlemen  of  Verona  and  The  Hireling  Sliepherd  on  the  one 
hand,  and  any  of  his  pictures  painted  after  his  first  visit  to 
the  Holy  Land  on  the  other.  In  all  his  later  pictures  almost 
everything,  no  matter  what  the  material,  looks  as  if  it  had 
been  smoothed  down  and  oiled.  In  other  respects  he  has 
maintained  all  through  the  patient  record  of  detail. 

The  subjects  of  most  of  his  earlier  pictures  were  taken, 


132  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

as  we  have  seen,  from  history  and  poetry ;  his  later  work 
was  devoted  mainly  to  the  person  and  work  of  Christ. 
Even  The  Hireling  ShepJierd  and  The  Strayed  Sheep  have 
an  obvious  or  latent  ethical  purpose.  The  Awakened 
Conscience,  with  all  its  careful  study  of  a  mid-Yictorian 
interior,  was  intended  to  be  a  companion  picture  to  The 
Light  of  the  World.  In  The  Ship,  which  has  now  found 
a  home  in  the  National  Gallery  of  British  Art,  he  does 
not  in  intention  depart  from  literature,  for  the  picture 
was  suggested  by  Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam."  Being  a 
night-scene,  the  detail  is  not  so  insistent  as  in  other  pic- 
tures, and  he  achieves  unity  of  impression;  but  there  is 
also  more  detail  than  any  one  but  Holman  Holt  would  have 
observed  and  recorded;  more  than  can  be  seen  without 
careful  examination.  Two  water-colour  drawings  of  night- 
eflfects — Halt  for  the  NigJit,  Zahle,  and  The  Ponte  Vecchio 
at  Flm^ence — are  interesting  in  the  same  way.  They  are 
impressions.  None  of  the  details  seems  to  ask,  more  than 
others,  for  our  attention,  almost  to  clamour  for  it,  as  in 
many  of  the  other  pictures,  details  that  we  should  not  see 
at  the  place  itself  without  the  most  careful  scrutiny. 

He  painted  several  pictures,  notably  Amaryllis,  U  Dolce 
Far  Niente,  and  Bianca,  to  show  that  he  was  not  abso- 
lutely dependent  on  a  subject  of  dramatic  character. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  in  these  and  similar  pictures  he 
met  with  much  success.  They  emphasise  the  limita- 
tions of  his  art.  The  solid,  painstaking  craftsmanship, 
the  earnestness  with  which  all  detail  is  so  faithfully 
rendered,  do  not,  in  one  sense,  seem  out  of  keeping 
with  subjects  of  religious  or  ethical  character.  There  is 
a  strenuous  moral  quality  in  the  subjects  themselves  mth 
which  the  workmanship  is  in  keeping.     But  when  such  sub- 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  133 

jects  as  a  woman  enjoying  an  idle  hour,  or  a  maiden  with  a 
lute,  or  a  boy  making  a  tracing  against  a  window,  receive 
just  the  same  elaboration  of  detail,  the  obvious  labour  ex- 
pended by  the  artist  makes  the  idleness  or  pleasure  repre- 
sented seem  almost  like  a  task. 

The  differences  between  the  work  of  Mr.  Holnian  Hunt 
and  that  of  almost  any  other,  if  not  every  other  modern 
painter,  are  obvious.  They  have  not  been  with  him  a  mere 
matter  of  choice;  they  have  not  been  the  mere  result  of 
theory.  They  were  imposed  upon  him  from  within.  The 
key-note  of  his  character  is  devotion,  and  devotion  tends 
towards  a  narrow  intensity.  Once  the  thought  of  truth  to 
nature  possessed  him,  his  whole  nature  demanded  that  he 
should  give  it  a  rigid  interpretation.  Facts  must  be  re- 
corded to  the  least  detail.  Of  transient  eflfect  there  is  no 
record.  The  thing  itself,  with  a  steady  light  on  it,  showing 
it  as  clearly  as  it  can  be  shown,  is  what  we  are  to  have. 
Wonderful  beauty  there  is  of  this  and  that  object,  in  a  way 
often,  it  may  be  said,  beauty  throughout  the  picture,  but 
not  the  beauty  that  comes  where  detail  is  subordinated  to 
the  whole. 

Devotion  is  also  the  word  that  best  sums  up  the  subject- 
matter  of  his  pictures.  Devotion  to  love  and  truth,  or 
betrayal  of  them,  is  the  theme  of  nearly  all  his  most  im- 
portant works.  The  contrast  between  Valentine  and  Proteus ; 
the  anguish  with  which  Isabella  discovers  the  baseness  of 
Claudio  ;  the  lapse  from  duty  of  the  hireling  shepherd ;  the 
tragic  travesty  of  love  in  The  Awakened  Conscience;  the 
devotion  of  Christ  to  His  self-imposed  mission  of  redemp- 
tion ;  the  failure,  depicted  in  his  last  completed  picture — 
completed,  indeed,  by  another  hand,  because  his  ovm.  mar- 
vellous power  of  sight  had  failed — of  the  Lady  of  Shalott 


134  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  accomplish  her  appointed  task :  the  aim  of  all  these  pur- 
poseful works  of  his  has  been  to  say  that  he  that  endureth 
to  the  end  shall  both  save  and  be  saved.  Criticism  may 
have  to  point  out  limitations  in  his  art ;  it  may  have  much 
— it  must  have  something — to  wish  otherwise.  But  when 
all  critical  detractions  are  made,  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  work 
remains — as  a  painter,  almost  a  lifelong  friend  of  his,  ^vrote 
to  me  recently — a  precious  heritage. 

In  Pre-Rapliaelitism  and  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood, 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt  gives  us  clearly  to  imderstand  it  was 
on  his  persuasion  that  Millais,  at  the  beginning  of  his 
career,  determined  to  adopt  a  more  literal  rendering  of 
detail  than  was  then  customary.  After  recounting  a  long 
conversation  they  had  about  the  necessity  for  getting  nearer 
to  nature,  a  conversation  that  seems  to  have  consisted  in  a 
stream  of  talk  from  the  older  youth,  with  occasional  inter- 
jections by  the  younger  one,  Mr.  Hunt  says  :  "In  the  midst 
of  my  talk  Millais  continually  expressed  eagerness  to  get 
away  altogether  from  the  conventions  denounced,  declaring 
that  often  he  had  wondered  whether  something  very  in- 
teresting could  not  be  done  in  defiance  of  them."  This 
statement  of  the  matter  seems  to  fit  in  well  with  the  after 
course  of  events.  It  is  at  least  probable  that  the  artist  who 
throughout  his  life  has  kejit  to  the  methods  with  which  the 
two  set  out,  should  have  been  the  one  to  suggest  them  rather 
than  he  who  abandoned  them  before  many  years  had 
elapsed.  And  Millais  was  a  so  much  more  rapid  worker 
than  Holman  Hunt — he  was  the  most  brilliant  Academy 
student  of  his  own  or  perhaps  any  other  day,  and  this  at  an 
unusually  early  age — that  it  seems  likely  he  would  not,  un- 
influenced, have  submitted  himself  to  the  severe  discipline 
upon  which  the  two  decided.     In  his  earlier  work  he  had 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  135 

been  much  influenced  by  Etty,  who,  Sir  J.  G.  Millais  saya 
in  his  biography  of  his  father,  was  the  only  man  of  the  old 
school  whom  he  really  admired.  This  influence  is  evident 
in  his  Cymon  and  fyhtgema,  which  was  painted  in  1847, 
when  Holman  Hunt  and  he  were  discussing  together  the 
problems  of  art.  His  next  picture  was  Lorenzo  and  leahellay 
exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  1849,  his  first  work 
after  the  formation  of  the  Pre-Eaphaelite  Brotherhood. 
There  is  a  world  of  difference  between  the  two.  In  the 
former,  the  drawing  of  the  figures  and  the  treatment  of 
the  drapery  and  of  the  landscape  are  in  accordance  with 
a  suave  academic  convention ;  the  grouping  of  the  figures 
and  the  arrangement  of  light  and  shade  are  also  in  ac- 
cordance with  well-established  rule.  In  the  latter  picture 
the  rules  are  disregarded.  Not  to  produce  a  conventional 
work  of  art,  but  to  represent  a  scene  as  it  actually  would 
appear,  was  now  the  painter's  aim ;  and  though  there  is 
design  in  the  picture,  it  is  not  as  obvious  or  as  formal  as 
in  the  earlier  one.  The  light  and  the  grouping  are  not 
so  arranged  as  to  concentrate  the  interest  near  the  centre 
of  the  canvas.  Portraits  of  Millais'  relatives  and  friends 
serve  for  the  persons  represented ;  truth  is  here  again 
the  note.  And  in  feature  and  gesture  it  is  not  conven- 
tional beauty  and  grace  that  are  sought,  but  expressive- 
ness. 

The  pictures  that  Millais  exhibited  in  the  eventful  years 
1850  and  1851  have  already  been  mentioned.  They  are 
the  same  in  general  treatment  as  the  Lorenzo  and  hahellay 
but  are  more  concentrated  in  design  and  stronger  in  colour. 
These  are  the  pictures  for  which,  in  his  own  phrase,  he  was 
so  "  dreadfully  bullied."  Wliat  had  been  reganled  in  the 
picture  of   1849  as  the  result  of  youthful  inexperience, 


136  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

was  now  known  to  be  the  outcome  of  set  purpose;  and 
bitter,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  resentment  occasioned  in 
orthodox  quarters. 

Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  held  on,  however,  with  the 
help  of  Ruskin ;  and  so  speedily  came  the  reversal  of  judg- 
ment in  Millais'  case  that,  in  1853,  he  was  elected  an 
associate  of  the  Royal  Academy. 

In  1852  he  had  exhibited  Ophelia  and  The  Huguenot.  No 
change  in  his  art  immediately  succeeded  his  entrance  to  the 
Acaderny.  The  Order  of  Release,  The  Proscribed  Royalist, 
The  Rescue,  Peace  Concluded,  Autumn  Leaves,  and  The  Blind 
Girl,  were  his  most  important  pictures  of  the  next  four  years. 
It  was  in  1857  that  there  were  signs  of  change.  Ruskin 
discovered  them  in  his  principal  picture  of  that  year.  Sir 
Isumhras  at  the  Ford.  There  was  not  the  same  careful 
observation  and  record  of  fact  as  in  his  previous  work.  The 
critic  said  that  the  change  was  not  fall  merely,  but  catas- 
trophe. The  Vale  of  Rest,  exhibited  in  1859,  was  also 
adversely  criticised  by  Ruskin.  Millais  himself  admitted 
that  there  had  been  a  change  in  his  work  j  for  in  a  letter  of 
this  year  he  says  of  Ruskin  :  "  He  does  not  understand  my 
work,  which  is  now  too  broad  for  him  to  appreciate,  and  I 
think  his  eye  is  only  fit  to  judge  the  portraits  of  insects. 
But  then,  I  think  he  has  lost  all  real  influence  as  a  critic." 
Influence  with  whom  ?  Presumably  with  the  dealers  and  the 
purchasing  public ;  for  it  was  on  the  verdict  of  these  critics 
that  Millais  was  now  relying.  Adverse  criticisms  from 
Ruskin  and  others  were  in  his  estimation  infamous  attempts 
to  destroy  him.  They  aroused  indignation.  When  purchasers 
held  back  he  was  depressed.  When  they  came  forward 
again  he  recovered  his  good  spirits.  "  So  much,"  he  writes, 
"for  the  brutal  criticisms!    The  fact  is,  I  shall  have  my 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  137 

own  way  after  all.  If  dealers  give  my  prices  they  must 
make  twenty  per  cent  on  them." 

It  was  not  only  the  critics  that  saw  a  falling-ofif.  His  old 
comrade  Holman  Hunt  saw  it ;  but  he  excuses  Millais  on  the 
ground  that  he  could  not  be  expected  to  go  on  producing 
good  work  when  the  country  did  not  support  him.  Even 
men  of  the  purest  genius,  he  says,  cannot  do  this.  A  man 
of  genius,  he  maintains,  has  a  right  to  marry  when  he  has 
made  for  himself  a  commanding  position,  and  then  he  must 
support  his  family.  This  is  how,  according  to  Mr.  Holman 
Hunt,  Millais  put  the  case  himself :  the  public  and  private 
patrons  went  like  a  flock  of  sheep  after  any  silly  bell-wether 
who  clinked  before  them;  they  would  not  have  what  he 
knew  to  be  best  for  them;  he  must  live,  so  they  should  have 
what  they  wanted.  They  got  it ;  he  sold  his  pictures,  could 
support  his  family;  and  in  1860  he  took  a  shooting  in  the 
Highlands.  Nearly  twenty  years  later  he  advised  Holman 
Hunt  to  set  to  work  to  meet  the  taste  of  the  day,  and  not 
the  supposed  taste  of  the  future,  and  he  would  soon  get  out 
of  his  difficulties ;  adding  that  he  himself  had  just  sold  a 
picture  done  in  two  weeks  that  would  pay  the  expenses  of  all 
his  family,  his  own  shooting  and  fishing  included,  for  their 
whole  time  in  Scotland.  The  problem  of  supporting  the 
family  had  been  adequately  solved  ! 

It  is  not  a  little  disquieting  to  find  the  painter  of  Th^ 
Shadow  of  Death  and  The  Light  of  the  World  saying  that  a 
man  of  genius  cannot  continue  to  do  his  best  unless  he  can 
get  general  applause  and  abundant  pay.  Madox  Brown, 
who  had  perhaps  some  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  genius, 
managed  to  do  it.  We  need  not  blame  either  Holman 
Hunt  or  Millais  overmuch.  Perhaps  the  average  English- 
man could  not  afford  to  throw  stones  at  them.     Is  this 


138  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

one  of  the  things  they  do  better  in  France?  So  much 
was  hinted  in  the  last  chapter.  Burne- Jones  said  once  of 
French  painters :  "  The  skill  and  daring  of  their  work,  and 
singleness  of  purpose  and  esprit  de  corpSj  their  indifference 
to  comfort,  and  even  necessary  food,  proves  them  to  be  a  set 
of  splendid  gentlemen,  whom  it  would  be  difficult  to  match 
in  this  country,  which  I  do  think  is  spoiled  and  sullied  by 
wealth." 

It  would  be  wrong,  however,  to  think  that  the  change 
from  Millais'  earlier  to  his  later  manner  was  only  or  mainly 
an  instance  of  "just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  left  us."  As 
already  suggested,  he  w^as  not  born  to  Holman  Hunt's 
painstaking  manner.  It  was  probably  as  foreign  to  him  as  it 
was  natural  to  his  friend.  Nor  was  he  a  poet  like  Rossetti. 
The  later  Millais  was  the  real  Millais.  His  son  and  biographer 
resents  the  often  expressed  opinion  that  his  finest,  his  most 
intense  work  was  done  under  Rossetti's  inspiration;  and 
mentions  particular  pictures  that  were  completed  before  Ros- 
setti ever  saw  them.  But  this  is  to  take  a  very  narrow  view 
of  the  way  in  which  one  man  may  influence  another.  This 
is  certain :  that  the  difference  between  Millais'  earlier  and  his 
later  work  is  not  only  in  the  greater  breadth  of  the  latter,  in 
the  substitution  of  suggestion  for  detailed  realisation  of  fact, 
but  that  there  is  in  it  less  intensity,  less  imagination.  His 
early  work  had  been  done  to  please  himself  and  his  com- 
panions, in  pursuit  of  an  ideal  they  had  enthusiastically  set 
before  themselves.  He  was  supported  by  the  patient  labor- 
iousness  of  Holman  Hunt,  and  inspired  by  the  poet-painter 
and  painter-poet  whose  influence  on  all  who  came  near  him 
was  magnetic.  "When  the  Brotherhood  was  dissolved, 
each  member  was  comparatively  left  to  himself.  Hunt  and 
Rossetti  continued  and  ended  as  they  had  begun.     MiUais, 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITJSM  139 

who  had  taken  an  impress  from  them,  now  took  an  impress 
from,  or,  at  least,  readily  responded  to,  his  new  surround- 
ings. Not  long  after  the  time  when  the  removal  of  his 
pictures  from  the  walls  of  the  Academy  had  been  demanded 
he  had  become  a  privileged  exhibitor.  The  public  began  to 
take  pleasure  in  his  works,  and  he  was  pecuniarily  successful. 
When  he  was  told  that  the  critics  were  severe  on  him,  he 
only  said,  "  The  wickedness  and  envy  at  the  bottom  of  all 
this  are  so  apparent  to  me  that  I  disregard  all  the  reviews 
(I  have  not  read  one),  but  I  shall  certainly  have  this  kind  of 
treatment  all  my  life.  The  public  crowd  round  my  pictures 
more  than  ever,  and  this,  I  think,  must  be  the  main  cause 
of  animosity."  It  is  perhaps  not  always  wise  to  accept  as 
consolation  for  the  hostility  of  educated  opinion  the  ap- 
proval of  the  uneducated.  Critics  who  have  no  cause  of 
animosity  still  lament  a  falling-off  in  Millais'  later  work. 
But  he  had  his  reward  :  he  became  a  popular  painter. 

For  this  kind  of  success  he  had  just  the  right  qualifica- 
tions. He  was  a  rapid  worker.  In  the  days  of  the  Brother- 
hood he  used  to  exhibit  two  or  three  pictures  to  Holman 
Hunt's  one.  He  was  also  versatile.  He  could  paint,  with 
equal  success,  man,  woman,  child,  animal,  landscape — any- 
thing, one  might  say.  He  was  not  handicapped  by  excess 
of  imagination.  He  was  not  a  visionary.  He  had  no  par- 
ticular quarrel  with  the  world  as  he  found  it ;  so  he  did  not 
dwell  in  dreamland,  like  Rossetti  and  Burne-Jones,  and 
perplex  the  public  with  pictorial  puzzles.  The  quality  of 
his  imagination  may  be  gauged  by  a  story  that  he  \vrote  for 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  organ.  The  Gei-m.  It  never  appeared, 
since  the  number  for  which  it  was  intended  did  not  appear. 
An  outline  of  the  story  is  given  by  his  son  in  the  Biography  ; 
we  may,  therefore,  be  sure  that  less  than  justice  has  not 


140  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

been  done  to  it.  It  told  of  a  knight  who  loved  the  daughter 
of  a  king.  The  king  lived  in  a  moated  castle,  and,  though 
the  lady  returned  the  knight's  afifection,  the  king  forbade 
him  to  see  her  under  pain  of  death.  The  knight  -waited 
until  winter,  and  then,  when  the  moat  was  frozen  over, 
attempted  to  carry  off  the  lady ;  but  the  ice  broke  as  they 
were  crossing  the  moat ;  they  were  both  drowned ;  and  the 
king  was  inconsolable.  Years  afterwards,  when  the  moat 
was  drained,  the  skeletons  of  the  lovers  were  found,  the 
lady's  dress  still  clinging  to  the  points  of  the  knight's 
armour.  Doubtless  Millais  told  the  story  as  he  would 
have  painted  it —picturesquely ;  but  as  a  story,  as  a  plot,  it 
would  not  have  been  particularly  creditable  to  a  child  of 
ten.  It  will  be  recollected  that  Millais  painted  not  a  few 
pictures  of  pairs  of  lovers.  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  complains 
of  their  monotony :  "  Whenever  he  paints  a  lovers'  duet,  he 
places  his  heroes  standing,  exactly  in  the  same  position,  face 
to  face."  In  Pre-Raphaelitism  and  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood,  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  gives  an  instructive  account 
of  the  beginning  and  growth  of  Millais'  picture.  The 
Huguenot.  It  was  at  first  intended  to  illustrate  a  line  in 
Tennyson's  poem  "Circumstance  " — 

Two  lovers  whispering  by  a  garden  wall. 

So  Mr.  Hunt  quotes  the  line.  The  version  I  have  says 
"  orchard  wall."  Mr.  Hunt  told  him  he  did  not  think  much 
of  the  subject ;  that  he  did  not  think  lovers  ought  to  be 
pryed  upon ;  that  a  poet  might  describe  a  meeting  of  lovers 
as  part  of  a  story ;  but  that  a  painting  of  such  a  meeting 
had  neither  prelude  nor  sequel.  Millais  agreed;  but  he 
had  designed  the  picture,  and  the  background  of  it  was 
advanced.     Hostile  critics  of  Pre-Raphaelitism  have  surely 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAEUTISM  141 

made  merry  over  this  painting  first  the  ivied  wall,  the 
obtrusiveness  of  which  has  given  so  much  offence  !  Millais 
happened  to  see  a  sketch  by  Holman  Hunt  for  a  picture  of  a 
Lancastrian  lady  and  a  Yorkist  knight,  with  castle  parapet, 
rope-ladder,  etc.  Millais  at  once  jumped  at  the  idea  of  the 
rival  roses  for  his  lovers.  Hunt  objected  that  this  would 
require  a  castle,  not  an  ivied  wall.  Then  Millais  turned  to 
Cavalier  and  Puritan — he  got  them  in  later — but  Hunt 
urged  that  they  had  been  worked  to  death.  Then  recol- 
lection of  the  opera  suggested  the  Huguenot,  and  he  said  he 
would  send  his  mother  to  the  British  Museum  to  find  what 
kind  of  badge  the  Catholics  wore.  Did  Millais  get  other 
such  lifts  out  of  the  obvious  in  the  Brotherhood  days  1  The 
story  intended  for  The  Germ  suggests  that  he  might  need 
them.  Anyhow,  it  was  the  obvious  in  which,  in  later  years, 
he  chiefly  dealt.  His  rapidity  in  work,  his  versatility,  his 
instinct  for  painting  prettily  what  nearly  everybody  had 
seen  or  would  like  to  see,  were  guarantees  of  popularity. 
This  does  not  mean  that  he  deliberately  played  to  the 
gallery.  It  does  not  necessarily  mean  more  than  that  what 
pleased  him  pleased  also  the  majority  of  those  who  thronged 
the  exhibition  rooms  at  Burlington  House.  What  was  it  he 
said  when  he  heard  of  the  accusation  that  he  had  of  set 
purpose  chosen  trivial,  popular  subjects?  Was  it  not  to 
the  efiect  that  had  he  done  this,  he  would  have  painted,  for 
example,  an  old  woman  who  had  been  reading  tlie  Bible, 
and  the  tears  that  had  come  had  dimmed  her  spectacles,  and 
she  had  taken  them  off  to  dry  them  ?  This,  he  said,  would 
have  been  a  popular  picture.  Really,  many  things  he  i>ainted 
were  not  much,  if  at  all,  above  this  level. 

It  is  not  made  a  complaint  against  him  here  that  he 
abandoned  the  elaboration  of  detail  which  marked  his  work 


142  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  the  Brotherhood  days.  Even  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  finds  no 
fault  with  this;  for,  though  he  himself  has  kept  to  the 
detail,  he  says  that  it  was  only  intended  as  a  discipline,  not 
as  a  method  necessarily  to  be  continued  in  after  years. 
Millais  valued  it  as  a  discipline.  "This  looks  easy,  does  it 
not  ? "  he  remarked  to  one  who  was  watching  him  paint  one 
of  his  later  landscapes ;  "  but  I  could  not  do  it  had  I  not  first 
painted  Autumn  Leaves."  What  is  to  be  regretted  is  that 
with  greater  breadth  there  came  less  intensity.  I  recollect 
the  chief  custodian  of  one  of  our  national  collections  in- 
stancing The  Vale  of  Rest  to  show  that  Millais  had  never 
painted  with  Pre-Raphaelite  detail ;  but  he  was  abandoning 
the  detail  when  he  painted  this  picture.  And  there  is 
nothing  like  the  marvellous  rendering  of  twilight  in  it 
that  there  is  in  Autumn  Leaves. 

Nor,  as  time  went  on,  did  Millais  interpret  child-character 
as  he  did  in  that  great  work.  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  has  said  of 
it :  "  The  spiritual  note  of  the  picture  lies  in  the  contrast 
between  the  carelessness  of  the  young  girls,  who  are  heaping 
the  fire  for  the  fun  of  it,  and  *  the  serious  whisper  of  the 
twilight,'  as  Poe  fancied  he  could  hear  the  stealing  of  the 
darkness  over  the  horizon."  But  the  girl  who  is  actually 
heaping  up  the  leaves  is  doing  so  with  the  gesture  and 
expression  of  one  offering  sacrifice  on  an  altar.  She  feels 
the  pathos  of  both  twilight  and  autumn.  The  younger 
ones  do  not  feel  it;  so  there  is  contrast  between  one  girl 
and  the  others,  not  merely  between  them  all  and  the 
solemnity  of  the  hour  and  the  season.  And  there  is 
further  contrast,  finely  rendered,  between  the  children  of 
the  family  and  the  gardener's  children.  The  picture  is 
compact  of  beauty  and  emotion,  of  sight  and  insight.  So, 
also,  and  hardly,  if  at  all,  in  less  degree,  is  The  Blind  Girl. 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  143 

In  Sir  Isumbras  at  the  Ford,  the  children  epitomise  childish 
fear  and  wonder.  One  would  not  part  with  these  children 
of  the  earlier  pictures  for  a  wilderness  of  such  as  those  in 
Cherry  Ripe,  Cinderella,  Pomona,  Bubbles,  and  others  of 
the  later  pictures,  where  there  is  little  more  than  mere 
prettiness  and  fancy  costumes.  These  might  all  be  admir- 
ably copied  as  tableaux  for  a  children's  party.  They  would 
lose  nothing  in  the  process.  But  how  much  would  the 
children  in  the  earlier  pictures  lose  !  Cinderella  is  obviously 
a  pretty  girl  playing  a  part,  or,  rather,  dressed  for  the  part, 
and  not  playing  it  well.  I  think  of  Renoir's  sleeping  girl 
wth  the  cat  on  her  knee,  a  Cinderella  of  real  life,  the  very 
thing  itself ;  and  the  contrast  serves  to  show  that  there  may 
be  loss  to  art  through  popular  success.  Millais'  painting  of 
children,  after  being  of  the  best,  became  superficial,  trivial. 
The  child  in  A  Souvenir  of  Velasquez  was  a  pretty  little 
girl  he  happened  to  see  in  church ;  and  in  the  picture  she 
is  merely, a  pretty,  a  very  pretty,  little  girl,  fancifully 
dressed,  and  looking  as  if  she  were  rather  bored  at  having 
to  sit  so  still.  Charming  as  the  picture  is,  it  is  the  charm 
of  representation,  not  of  interpretation. 

The  casting  roimd  for  a  subject,  of  which  Mr.  Holman 
Hunt  gives  an  example,  as  already  mentioned,  was  character- 
istic of  Millais  all  through.  His  subject-pictures  have  no 
unity  of  intention.  They  do  not  variously  illustrate,  as,  for 
example,  do  the  paintings  of  Jean  Fran9oi8  Millet,  a  par- 
ticular phase  of  life  and  work.  Millais  was  not  a  visionary. 
Nor  did  the  strenuous  life  of  his  own  time  take  such  a  hold 
upon  his  imagination  that  he  must  set  himself  to  interpret 
it.  He  only  made  pictorial  excursions  in  many  directions. 
He  saw  something  at  an  opera;  he  read  something  in  a 
book;   a  thought  flashed  upon  him;  he  met  with  an  in- 


144  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

cident  in  real  life;  he  could  make  a  realistic  picture  of  it, 
and,  in  due  time,  the  picture  appeared.  There  was  more 
than  a  touch  of  melodrama,  something  sentimental  or  sensa- 
tional, in  many  of  these  pictures.  The  "lovers'  duets"  have 
already  been  mentioned.  Tlie  Escape  of  a  Heretic,  Mercy, 
St.  Bartholomew's  Day,  and  Speak,  Speak  t  border,  at  least, 
on  the  sensational.  He  is  at  a  much  higher  level  of  story- 
telling in  Tlie  North- West  Passage.  But,  if  we  take  his 
work  as  a  whole,  that  is,  from  not  long  after  the  Brother- 
hood period,  it  unmistakably  suggests  that  what  he  gave  to 
the  world  was  not  drawn  from  what  was  deepest  in  his  own 
nature.  There  was  loss  as  well  as  gain  in  his  marvellous 
facility.  There  was  nothing  in  his  work  that  was  not  pure, 
lovely,  and  of  good  report;  but  had  he  been  one  of  the 
poor  gentlemen  whom  Burne-Jones  recognised  amid  the 
artists  of  France,  the  good  qualities  of  his  work  might  have 
been  intensified. 

When  we  turn  to  his  landscape  painting  we  find  our- 
selves thinking  what  the  man  who  painted  Autumn  Leaves 
and  the  Blind  Girl  might  have  done.  Only  then  he  could 
not  have  been  the  portrait  painter  he  was,  must  we  say? 
We  ought  perhaps  to  accept  his  landscapes  as  part  of  his 
recreation,  or  as  holiday  tasks.  If  so,  they  are  uncommonly 
good,  so  good  that  we  cannot  but  wish  they  had  been 
better.  Of  his  love  of  nature  there  can  be  no  doubt.  He 
had  more  capacity  for  it  than  he  found  occasion  to  exercise. 
His  chief  work  lay  in  the  town;  it  was  when  he  laid  it 
aside  that  he  could  get  into  touch  with  nature;  and,  even 
then,  much  of  his  time  went  in  physical  exercise  in  the 
form  of  shooting  and  fishing.  We  may  say  that  he  chanced 
ujDon  rather  than  sought  the  subjects  of  his  landscapes. 
They  were,  therefore,  limited  in  range ;  nor  did  he  interpret 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  145 

more  than  a  few  of  nature's  many  moods.  He  painted 
realistic  views  of  places  for  which  associations  quite  un- 
connected with  art  had  won  his  afifection;  and  he  was 
content  to  represent  them  under  quite  ordinary  atmospheric 
conditions.  His  love  for  plants  and  flowers  amoimted 
almost  to  a  passion.  The  flowers  in  Kensington  Gardens 
were  a  Godsend  to  him  when  he  could  not  leave  London. 
In  this  connexion  may  be  mentioned  also  his  love  of 
animals,  which  is  evidenced  by  the  sympathetic  rendering 
of  them,  so  true  to  their  animal  nature,  in  several  of  his 
works.  Millais  was  really  a  typical  English  gentleman,  of 
the  old  school  we  may  say,  fond  of  the  pleasures  of  both 
town  and  country,  keenly  observant  of  the  people  and 
things  about  him,  interested  also,  in  an  unpretentious  way, 
in  history  and  poetry,  and,  beyond  all  this,  possessed  of  a 
wonderful  gift  of  painting. 

His  portraits  are  intelligent  appreciations  of  some  of  the 
most  distinguished  people  of  his  time.  He  marks  off"  in 
them  varieties  of  character,  temperament,  and  intellect. 
And  yet,  though  we  feel  sure  that  these  are  good  likenesses, 
that  he  has  seen  these  people  as  he  painted  them,  and  that 
the  expression  he  has  given  them  is  true  and  characteristic, 
yet  the  portraits  have  not  the  quality  of  the  very  greatest, 
in  which  there  are,  not  merely  one,  though  it  be  a 
characteristic  expression,  but  lights  and  shades  that  almost 
come  and  go,  so  that  the  face  seems  to  change  as  we  look 
at  it.  Such  portraits  seem  to  take  their  subjects  unawares, 
while  they  are  dwelling  with  their  own  thoughts  and 
feelings,  memories  and  hopes,  and  are  absolutely  without 
suspicion  that  any  one  is  looking  at  them;  or,  if  they  do 
know  that  some  one  else  is  there,  it  is  they  who  look,  not 
who  are  looked  at,  and  the  look  is  a  revelation  of  character. 
I. 


146  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Millais  painted  many  portraits  of  women,  at  times,  as  with 
those  of  children,  resorting  to  costume  and  fancy  title,  so 
that,  for  example,  the  Hon.  Caroline  Roche  becomes  Diana 
Vernon;  and  there  are,  of  course,  many  portraits  of 
women,  as  of  men,  in  his  subject-pictures.  He  could 
unfailingly  render  beauty,  charm,  and  sprightliness,  the 
self-possession  of  the  woman  in  "society,"  and  the  grace, 
naturalness,  and  gentleness  of  what  we  account  most 
womanly. 

It  is  not  unsignificant,  when  we  are  trying  to  assess  the 
value  of  Millais'  gift  to  us — and  from  first  to  last,  with  all 
failings  admitted,  we  must  admit  its  high  value — that  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  craved  for  any  other  sphere  of  work, 
for  any  other  access  to  the  public,  than  such  as  was  afforded 
him  by  the  Royal  Academy  exhibitions.  He  had  no  desire 
to  paint  an  epic  on  the  walls  of  some  great  building.  His 
imagination  would  not  have  sustained  him  through  such  an 
endeavour.  His  work  was  episodical.  We  may  take  a 
literary  parallel  and  say  that  his  subject-pictures  are  only 
so  many  short  poems  or  stories.  Holm  an  Hunt  has 
painted  nothing  but  easel-pictures.  Yet  his  devotion,  in 
the  main,  to  one  theme,  and  the  lofty  seriousness  that  in- 
forms almost  the  whole  of  this  work — only  occasionally  has 
he  relaxed  the  tension — gives  it  an  epic  character.  Millais 
rarely,  if  ever,  struck  a  deeper  note  than  the  pathetic.  Has 
he  ever,  for  example,  sounded  the  depths  of  human  nature 
as  did  Holman  Hunt  in  Claudio  and  Isabel/ a  ?  I  have  not 
trusted  to  memory,  but  have  looked  through  a  full  list  of  his 
works,  and  can  find  nothing  that  is  the  same  in  kind.  We 
get  no  tragedy  from  him ;  nor  do  we  get  any  humour.  From 
another  painter — of  whom  something  has  already  been  said, 
and  to  whom  we  were  to  return,  Ford  Madox  Brown — we 


THE   COURSE  OF  PRERAPHAELITISM  147 

get  the  whole  range  of  the  drama,  even  to  the  full  extent 
of  the  enumeration  of  its  phases  by  Polonius. 

We  left  Madox  Brown  at  the  time  wlien  he  was  painting 
such  pictures  as  Chaucer  at  the  Court  of  Mward  III  and 
Wycliffe  reading  his  Translation  of  the  Bible  to  John  of 
Gaunt.  We  saw  tliat  these  works  were  inspired  by  those 
of  the  Italian — actually — Pre-Raphaelite  painters.  They 
had  not,  therefore,  either  the  independence  of  tradition, 
or  the  close  realism,  at  which  Holman  Hunt  aimed.  But 
they  had  an  earnestness  and  expressiveness,  and  an  approxi- 
mation to  realism,  very  different  from  most  contemporary 
English  work.  The  Chaucer^  begun  in  1846,  was  completed 
in  1851 ;  the  Wycliffe^  begun  in  1847,  was  exhibited  in 
1848.  The  works  exhibited  by  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais 
in  1849  were  certainly  less  dependent  on  tradition  and 
more  realistic  than  these  of  Madox  Brown's.  At  this  time 
they  were  ahead  of  him  in  these  respects.  The  first  two 
pictures  of  his  that  rivalled  the  work  of  the  other  two  on 
their  own  groimd  were  Work  and  The  Last  of  En/jland, 
both  begun  in  1852 — the  former  completed  in  1855,  the  latter 
not  until  1863.  Madox  Brown  was  the  first  to  move  in  the 
direction  of  realism ;  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  then  started 
and  outstripped  him.     He  caught  up  with  them  again. 

The  two  pictures  just  named  were  painted  laboriously  in 
the  open  air,  and  with  great  elaboration  of  detail.  They 
were  marked  by  an  intensity  of  feeling  and  a  dramatic 
realisation  of  character  to  which  the  work  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  brethren  did  not  attain;  and  they  were  in  ad- 
vance also  in  this  respect,  that  their  subjects  were  taken 
from  contemporary  life,  not  from  history  or  poetry;  tliey 
were  wnmg  from  the  painter  by  the  struggle  through 
which  he  and  his  friends  had  to  pass  to  secure  even  a  bar« 


148  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

livelihood.  In  both  these  pictures  the  aim  of  the  artist  was 
not  to  produce  a  sensuously  beautiful  result.  He  sought  to 
express  the  thought  and  emotion  aroused  in  him  by  contem- 
porary life.  Manet,  painting  a  crowd  in  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries,  had  finished  when  he  had  given  the  general  im- 
pression upon  the  sight  of  form  and  movement,  of  play  of 
light  and  colour,  that  could  be  seen  if  the  crowd  and  its 
surroundings  were  looked  at  as  a  whole.  It  is  true  that 
some  of  the  people  in  the  crowd  are  recognisable ;  but  that 
is  all.  We  need  not  examine  them  more  closely  for  charac- 
teristic action,  gesture,  or  expression.  In  Madox  Brown's 
Work^  Thomas  Carlyle  and  Frederick  Denison  Maurice  are 
talking  together.  Maurice  looks  troubled,  presumably  at 
some  pessimistic  utterance  by  Garlyle,  whose  sardonic  grin  is 
made  still  more  sardonic  by  a  visible  gap  in  his  upper  row  of 
teeth.  The  picture  can  be  examined  most  minutely,  and 
every  examination  will  disclose  some  hitherto  unseen  charac- 
teristic detail.  One  of  the  figures  is  a  powerfully-built,  bull- 
necked,  gaudily-dressed  beer-  and  pipe-seller,  a  scar  on 
whose  cheek  proclaims  fighting  propensities  for  which  his 
muscular  arm  clearly  demands  respect.  Examine  him  more 
closely,  and  you  will  find  that  his  shirt-front  is  decorated 
with  little  figures  of  pirouetting  ballet-girls.  The  picture 
is  a  painted  parable  of  the  work  or  the  idleness  of  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men  and  women — from  the  philosopher,  the 
divine,  the  Member  of  Parliament,  and  the  lady  tract-distri- 
butor, to  the  navvy,  the  Irish  reaper,  the  orange-seller,  the 
tatterdemalion  flower-seller,  and  the  ragged  children  of 
the  street.  The  contrasts  are  even  carried  into  the  animal 
world,  the  lady's  flannel-jacketed  spaniel — it  is  a  blazing- 
hot  day — being  in  the  act,  to  the  horror  of  his  mistress,  of 
chumming  with  the  navvies'  terrier   and   bull-pup.     The 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  149 

whole  picture  is  a  marvellous  piece  of  craftsmanship,  hril- 
liantly  glowing  in  colour.  Does  it  overstep  the  limits  of 
painting  ?  Is  it  a  literary  trespasser  in  the  field  of  art  1  It 
may  have  been  suggested  by  Carlyle's  "  Past  and  Present," 
says  the  artist's  grandson,  Mr.  Ford  M.  Hueffer.  Madox 
Brown  read,  and,  it  seems  probable,  re-read  Carlyle's  book, 
and  it  would  be  with  him  as  it  has  been  with  many  of  us : 
life,  such  life  as  we  see  in  the  streets,  life  anywhere,  would 
seem  different  to  him  ever  after.  It  would  have  in  one  way 
a  more  intense  significance  for  him  than  for  us.  Madox 
Brown  was  a  painter.  He  could  set  down  in  form  and 
colour  what  he  saw.  But  he  was  not  content  to  record  only 
the  play  of  form  and  movement,  light  and  colour,  on  his 
optic  nerve.  He  painted  the  reaction  of  what  he  saw  upon 
his  whole  nature.  And,  for  my  part,  I  can  only  say  that  I 
should  be  sorry  if  such  pictures  were  never  painted ;  if  it 
could  be  said  to  the  painter,  "Thou  shalt  not  in  thy  art  show 
thyself  as  more  than  a  being  responsive  to  sensuous  beauty." 

The  Last  of  England  has  the  same  qualities ;  but  it  is 
more  concise.  There  are  only  two  principal  figures,  an 
emigrant  and  his  wife,  looking  sadly  at  the  receding  shores 
of  their  native  land.  The  picture  is  an  epic  of  emigration  ; 
a  chapter  in  the  long  and  infinitely  varied  history  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  which  is  the  common  lot  of  all  living 
things.  The  man  and  woman  sit  hand  in  hand.  The 
woman's  left  hand  clasps  that  of  a  baby  sheltered  beneath 
her  shawl.  Behind  the  principal  figures  are  others,  such  as 
a  man  who  defiantly  shakes  his  fist  at  the  land  he  is  leaving. 

There  are  dramatic  energy  and  keen,  sympathetic  insight 
into  human  character  and  experience  in  all  Madox  Brown's 
works.  He  is  the  Browning  of  English  painting.  We  need 
not  expect  from  him  softly    modulated  form  and  colour. 


ISO  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

They  would  suit  his  subjects  about  as  well  as  the  metre  and 
rhythm  of  "  The  Idylls  of  the  King  "  would  suit  the  subject- 
matter  of  "  The  Ring  and  the  Book."  Tennyson  admitted 
the  dramatic  power  of  Browning's  poetry,  but  complained 
of  the  lack  of  music.  "  I  cannot  help  thinking,"  he  said, 
"  that  there  ought  to  be  some  melody  in  poetry ;  it  should 
not  be  all  thought."  I  once  took  one  of  the  younger 
Academicians  to  see  Madox  Brown's  paintings  in  the 
Manchester  Town  Hall,  and  his  comment  on  my  enthusiastic 
admiration  of  their  wealth  of  dramatic  incident  was,  "Yes, 
that  is  all  very  interesting ;  but  what  has  it  to  do  with  art  ? " 
Yet  in  general  effect  these  mural  paintings  are  remarkably 
decorative,  both  in  colour  and  design.  There  is  no  lack  of 
art  in  Madox  Brown's  work;  only  it  is  art  that  is  in 
harmony  with  the  dramatic  intention.  If  we  take  the 
subject  along  with  the  art ;  if  we  enter  into  the  feeling  that 
led  him  to  paint  TJie  Last  of  England,  or  Cordelia^ s  Portion, 
or  Cromwell,  Protedor  of  the  Vaudois,  or  Jesus  Waaheth 
Peter's  Feet,  we  shall  find  that  the  art  does  suit  the  subject. 
Browning's  poetry  is  not  artless,  much  less  inartistic;  nor 
are  Madox  Brown's  paintings.  Only  the  art  is  not  smooth 
and  conventional ;  nor  can  it  always  be  detached  from  the 
subject  and  enjoyed  apart.  But  to  ask  this  is  to  beg  the 
whole  question  :  to  say  that  painting  is  wholly  a  matter  of 
colour  and  light,  of  tones  and  values,  and  that  no  expres- 
siveness must  interfere  with  harmonious  sweep  and  curve  of 
line.  Carried  to  its  logical  extreme  this  would  mean  that  a 
portrait  painter  ought  never  to  paint  any  but  a  conventionally 
handsome  man  or  beautiful  woman.  Painting  would  have 
to  forswear  facts  altogether,  or  emasculate  them.  Which  is 
precisely  what  some  people  seem  to  be  intensely  anxious 
that  it  should  do. 


THK    LAST  OF   ENCILAND 


FOkP   MADOX    BROWN 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAEUTISM  151 

Work  and  The  Last  of  England  were  the  only  pictures  of 
importance  by  ISfadox  Brown  of  which  the  subjects  were 
taken  from  contemporary  life.  Hogarth,  when  he  determined 
to  be  something  more  than  a  mere  imitator  of  the  old 
masters,  found  in  the  life  about  him  material  for  almost  all 
his  pictures.  The  reformers  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century 
treated  their  own  time  with  comparative  neglect  In  this, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  movement  differed  from  the  realistic 
movement  in  France.  There  are  those  who  consider  the 
attempt  to  picture  times  gone  by  little  more  than  waste 
of  energy ;  who  say  that  in  the  future  people  will  not  care 
to  know  what  a  painter  in  the  nineteenth  or  twentieth 
century  thought  about  the  appearance  of  people  and  things 
in  this,  that,  or  the  other  century  before  or  after  Christ.  I 
will  content  myself  by  saying  that  it  seems  to  me  this  is 
quite  likely  not  to  be  the  case.  If  it  be  so,  it  will  probably 
be  because  they  will  take  more  interest  in  what  the  painters 
of  their  own  time  think  the  past  was  like.  Why  should 
we  interest  ourselves  in  a  modern  historian's  estimate  of 
those  long  dead;  and  not  interest  ourselves  in  what  a 
painter — one  to  whom  a  poem  or  an  historical  narrative 
inevitably  calls  up  a  picture — thinks  those  of  whom  he  has 
read  would  be  like  in  features,  if  there  be  record  or  descrip- 
tion of  their  features,  and  in  expression  and  gesture  1 

Of  course,  all  depends  on  the  insight  and  imagination  of 
the  painter.  If  he  have  not  these  gifts  we  shall  get  mere 
tableaux;  which  also,  however,  may  have  their  value. 
Madox  Brown,  with  whose  work  we  are  immediately  con- 
cerned, was  possessed  both  of  insght  and  imagination ;  and 
his  pictures  of  historical  events  and  personages  are  so  vivid 
and  powerful  as  to  be,  to  me  at  least,  absolutely  exciting. 
There  are  many  such  pictures  that  only  awaken  a  languid 


152  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

interest.  His  almost  transport  us  amongst  living  people  and 
actually  occurring  events.  We  wonder  and  rejoice  with  the 
widowed  mother  as  the  prophet  brings  to  her  the  son  who 
has  been  restored  to  life.  We  are  with  the  IVIaster  and  His 
disciples  when  St.  Peter  can  hardly  bring  himself  to  submit 
to  the  washing  of  his  feet.  The  face  and  form  of  Jesus 
declare  His  gentleness  and  meekness;  St.  Peter  is  all  im- 
pulsiveness; and  how  well  the  painter  has  understood  and 
shown  the  effect  that  this  incident  must  have  had  on  the 
other  disciples !  Judas  has  no  scruples  about  having  his 
feet  washed  by  the  Master.  St.  John  joyfully  recognises  the 
significance  of  this  humility ;  the  others,  amongst  whom  are 
those  who  wished  to  have  the  foremost  places  in  the  king- 
dom that  was  to  be  established,  look  on  with  only  half- 
comprehending  amazement  which,  in  the  case  of  some  of 
them,  amounts  to  consternation.  No  other  painter  has 
given  such  a  penetrating  interpretation  of  this  scene,  the  full 
significance  of  which  the  Christian  Church  is  even  now  so 
far  from  having  learned. 

GordelioHs  Portion  makes  vividly  clear  to  us  the  flaw  from 
which  all  the  tragic  events  of  "King  Lear"  came  as  a  necessary 
consequence.  "  He  hath  ever  but  slenderly  known  himself," 
said  his  daughter  Regan.  This  was  why  he  had  to  be 
stretched  upon  the  rack  of  this  rough  world  and  involve 
others  in  his  fate.  Where  other  painters  have  made  Romeo 
and  Juliet  but  conventional  lovers,  Madox  Brown,  true  to 
Shakespeare  and  to  Italy,  declares  the  elemental  passionate- 
ness  of  their  love,  and  more  than  hints  at  its  inevitably 
tragic  end  by  the  gesture  of  Romeo,  whose  foot,  seeking  for 
the  ladder,  and  whose  stiffly  outstretched  arm,  show  him  to 
be  only  too  well  aware  of  the  danger  he  runs  in  staying 
longer,  though  Juliet,  regardless  of  all  but  the  happiness  of 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  153 

the  moment,  still  clasps  him  in  her  arms  while  he  kisses 
her. 

To  see  the  picture  Cromwell  on  Ids  Farm  is  to  understand 
better — to  understand  fully — why,  when  the  Huntingdon- 
shire farmer  took  the  field,  the  fate  of  King  Charles  was 
se^iled.  Here  is  a  man  amid  a  very  pandemonium  of  noise — 
the  lowing  of  cattle,  the  grunting  and  squealing  of  pigs, 
the  crackling  of  flames,  the  shouting  of  a  serving-maid,  the 
quacking  of  a  duck  she  nearly  strangles — we  almost  hear 
the  horrid  din ;  yet  he,  amongst  it,  is  oblivious  of  it  all.  He 
has  been  reading  in  the  Bible  in  his  hand,  "  Lord,  how 
long  1  Wilt  thou  hide  Thyself  for  ever  1 »  "  And  shall  Thy 
wrath  burn  like  fire  % "  The  fire  at  his  horse's  feet  burns  the 
words  in  upon  him,  and  he  thinks  only  of  what  he  has  read, 
and  of  the  problems  and  the  tasks  that  confront  him ;  he 
has  neither  eye  nor  ear  for  the  things  immediately  around 
him;  he  will  soon  be  up  and  away,  leading  armies  in  the 
field,  and  ill  will  it  be  for  those  who  have  to  contend  against 
the  force  that  here  we  see  accumulating.  The  power  and 
fierce  determination  of  the  man  are  seen  again  in  Cromwdly 
Protector  of  the  Vaudois,  and  the  better  seen  by  contrast 
with  the  calmness  of  Milton,  who  measures  so  carefully  the 
words  of  the  dispatch  that  is  to  go  to  the  French  king  as 
to  make  Andrew  Marvell  almost  impatient,  while  Cromwell 
trembles  with  ill-suppressed  rage. 

There  is  inexhaustible  dramatic  interest  in  the  paintings 
in  the  Manchester  Town  Hall,  and  the  most  widely  different 
natures  are  truthfully  interpreted.  The  haughtiness  of  the 
Roman  officer  and  his  wife,  the  fervent  thankfulness  of 
Edwin's  queen  for  the  conversion  of  her  husband,  the  fear- 
less humility  of  Wickliffe  when  on  his  trial,  the  rash  defiance 
of  the  powerful  ecclesiastics  by  John  of  Gaunt — these  remain 


154  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

vividly  in  the  memory;  but  even  finer  than  these  seem  to  me 
the  figures  of  Crabtree,  the  amateur  astronomer,  watching  the 
transit  of  Venus,  and  John  Dalton,  collecting  marsh-gas. 
They  rank  in  painting  with  Browning's  Grammarian  and 
Abt  Vogler  in  poetry. 

These  men  are  enthusiastic  devotees  of  knowledge.  Crab- 
tree,  in  the  room  above  his  draper's  shop,  has  waited  through 
the  morning,  on  into  the  afternoon,  hoping  that  the  clouds 
would  break  and  let  the  sun  shine  through  ;  at  last  they  have 
broken,  and  his  instrument  shows  him  the  planet  crossing 
the  sun's  disc.  His  pipe  has  fallen  to  the  ground,  and  lies 
broken  there,  the  smoke  curling  up  from  the  smouldering 
ash,  while  his  rapt  gaze  is  fixed  on  the  sight  he  has  so 
eagerly  anticipated ;  and  he  presses  his  hands  to  his  side  as 
if  to  quieten  the  tumultuous  beating  of  his  heart.  His  wife, 
who,  though  she  cannot  share  to  the  full  her  husband's 
delight  at  this  first  observation  of  a  natural  phenomenon,  yet 
knows  what  it  means  to  him,  and  stops  her  boy  from  playing 
lest  he  should  disturb  his  father.  The  younger  child  in  her 
arms  recks  nothing  of  the  great  event.  This  group  serves  to 
emphasise  the  ecstasy  of  the  astronomer. 

John  Dalton  is  not  discovered  at  such  a  highly  dramatic 
moment ;  he  has  but  gone  out  from  the  town  to  a  field-pond 
to  collect  marsh-gas.  A  boy,  lying  at  full  length  on  a  plank 
laid  across  the  pond,  catches  in  an  inverted  bottle  the  bubbles 
of  gas  that  rise  to  the  surface  as  Dalton  stirs  up  the  mud 
with  a  pole.  To  the  boy  it  is  mere  amusement  to  catch  the 
bubbles.  Dalton  is  keenly  interested  in  the  operation; 
simple  though  it  be  in  itself,  it  is  to  provide  him  with  the 
means  of  carrying  on  scientific  experiments ;  for  he,  now  but 
a  humble  schoolmaster,  is  to  become  famous  as  the  dis- 
coverer of  a  great  natural  law.     As  a  foil  to  his  eagerness 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  155 

there  is  not  only  the  mere  amusement  of  the  boy  who  is 
helping  him.  By  the  side  of  the  pond  is  a  group  of  four 
children.  One  of  them,  a  lx)y,  is  much  interested  in  the 
gas-collecting.  A  girl  touches  his  shoulder,  telling  him  that 
Mr.  Dalton  is  catching  "Jack  o'  Lanterns."  She  carries  a 
younger  child,  who,  half  fearfully,  wants  the  boy  to  turn  round 
and  startle  her.  The  fourth  member  of  the  group  is  offering 
cherries  to  a  little  goat.  The  children  are  a  delightful  little 
picture  in  themselves ;  and,  like  the  group  in  the  Crabtree 
picture,  they  emphasise  by  contrast,  as  already  suggested, 
the  earnestness  of  the  student  of  science.  Dalton  himself  is 
finely  portrayed;  it  is  as  if  life  had  been  breathed  into 
Chantrey's  statue  of  him  which  is  in  the  same  building  as 
the  picture. 

In  almost  all  these  pictures  of  Madox  Brown's  there  is 
some  touch  of  humour,  kindly  or  grim.  Around  the  central 
subject  he  gathers  a  wealth  of  subordinate  detail  that  is 
never  irrelevant  or  perfunctory,  but  links  it  up  with  the 
ordinary  life  which  always  surrounds  and  is  in  relation  to 
even  the  greatest  events.  In  the  Manchester  painting, 
Philippa  of  Ilainault  examinimj  the  Work  of  Flemish 
Weavers^  a  boy  refuses  to  kneel  with  other  children  in  the 
roadway,  having  found  a  point  of  vantage,  from  which  to  see 
the  queen,  at  the  top  of  the  steps  of  the  market-cross.  In 
the  same  picture  a  weaver's  apprentice  looks  adoringly  at  his 
master's  daughter,  who  takes  no  notice  of  him,  but  teases  a 
kitten.  Here  is  a  parable.  The  maiden  he  loves  is  more  to 
the  youth  than  is  the  queen,  in  whose  visit  to  the  town  he 
betrays  not  the  slightest  interest.  So  we  might  go  through 
all  Madox  Brown's  works,  enjoying  the  evidence  of  his 
many-sided  interpretation  of  human  nature. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  the  dramatic  realism  of  his 


IS6  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

work  implies  no  abandonment  of  art,  but  only  its  accommo- 
dation to  his  main  purpose.  His  master,  Baron  Wappers, 
was  a  pupil  of  David,  and  though  he  broke  with  the  classical 
tradition,  he  did  not  forget  all  he  had  learned  from  David ; 
and  his  own  pupil,  Madox  Brown,  acquired  in  his  school  a 
faculty  for  design  which  showed  itself  not  only  in  his  easel 
and  mural  paintings,  but  also  in  cartoons  for  stained-glass 
windows.  There  is  a  monumental  quality  in  his  work  that 
distinguishes  it  from  that  of  both  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais. 
At  its  best,  also,  his  colour  can  be  called  great ;  it  is  strong, 
broad  in  general  effect,  and  harmonious.  In  the  mural 
painting.  The  Romans  building  Muncliester,  for  example, 
he  harmonises  various  shades  of  red  in  the  most  masterly 
manner,  contrasting  them  with  the  grey  of  the  sky  and  the 
brown  and  blue  of  the  autumn  woods  across  the  river.  He 
was  a  powerful  draughtsman,  though  he  developed  manner- 
isms and  showed  curious  defects,  as  in  the  drawing  of  limbs 
and  the  foreshortening  of  upturned  faces.  It  is  hardly  apart 
from  our  purpose  to  note  that,  beyond  practising  various 
forms  of  pictorial  art  and  making  designs  for  stained  glass, 
he  even  designed  furniture,  anticipating  in  part  the  work  of 
William  Morris  and  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Society. 

His  work  did  not  become  popular  in  his  lifetime,  nor  has 
it  yet  done  so.  There  are  some  in  whom  it  inspires  intense 
admiration;  in  others  it  arouses  equally  intense  dislike. 
Perhaps  we  may  regard  both  these  attitudes  as  tributes  to 
his  originality  and  power.  The  Browning  Societies  have  not 
yet  popularised  Browning,  his  counterpart  in  poetry. 

Madox  Brown,  outside  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood, 
Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  within  it,  were  the  realists  of  the 
mid-century  movement;  and  they  have  not  been  without 
their  following.     The  most  obvious  influence  has  been  that 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  157 

of  Millais.  His  versatility,  showing  itself  in  a  wide  range 
of  subjects,  in  each  of  which  he  achieved  noteworthy  suc- 
cess, rendered  this  inevitable.  Holman  Hunt  has  so  severely 
limited  himself  both  in  subject  and  treatment,  Madox 
Brown's  strong  individuality  so  impressed  itself  on  his  art, 
imparting  to  it  a  peculiar  character,  an  intense  strenuousness 
in  line,  colour,  and  expression,  that  neither  of  them  could 
possibly  attract  imitators  and  emulators  as  did  Millais.  One 
rarely  sees  a  picture  that  might  almost  be  a  Madox  Brown 
or  a  Holman  Hunt;  one  often  sees  a  picture  that  might 
almost  be  a  Millais. 

Of  the  immediate  followers,  the  friends  of  the  early  days, 
not  the  least  interesting,  though  he  early  abandoned  art  for 
literature,  was  Charles  AUston  Collins,  the  brother  of  Wilkie 
Collins.  Two  of  his  pictures,  accessible  to  the  public. 
Convent  Thorights  in  the  University  Galleries,  Oxford,  and 
The  Pedlar  in  the  Manchester  City  Art  Gallery,  have  all 
the  painstaking  insistence  on  detail  demanded  by  Holman 
Hunt's  theory  of  what  was  good  for  the  young  painter  at 
least.  Despite  its  stiffness  there  is  great  charm  in  the  for- 
mer picture,  and  there  is  dramatic  power  in  TTie  Pedlar y 
though  the  painting  is  painfully  hard.  It  was  the  sense  of 
his  technical  deficiencies  that  led  him  to  abandon  painting. 
He  was  much  with  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  in  the  Brother- 
hood days,  and  afterwards  he  stood  as  Millais'  model  for 
The  Huguenot  and  The  Black  Brunswicker. 

One  can  see  the  influence  of  both  Holman  Hunt  and 
Millais  in  the  work  of  Collins;  the  influence  of  Millais 
alone  is  to  be  seen  in  that  of  W.  S.  Burton.  His  picture, 
The  Wounded  Cavalier^  hung  next  to  Holman  Hunt's 
Scapegoat  in  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition  of  1856,  could 
never  have  been  painted,  one  thinks,  but  for  Millais'  Pro- 


158  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

scribed  Royalid.  It  is  the  same  theme  differently  treated — 
a  Puritan  maiden  succouring  a  Cavalier;  only,  in  Burton's 
picture,  it  is  obvious  that  the  help  is  given  out  of  pure 
humanity.  While  the  lady  seeks  to  staunch  the  wound  of 
the  Cavalier,  a  Puritan  youth  is  standing  by.  They  have 
found  the  unfortunate  man  lying  in  the  woodland,  and, 
apparently,  near  to  death.  There  may  be  already,  or  there 
may  be  soon,  a  personal  attachment  between  Millais' 
Puritan  maiden  and  the  Cavalier  to  whom  she  is  bringing 
food.  Burton's  picture  strikes  the  deeper  note.  The  paint- 
ing of  detail  is  marvellous.  The  composition,  with  respect 
to  the  figures  at  least,  is  conventional.  They  are  arranged 
pyramidally,  and  a  broken  wall  and  some  trailing  under- 
growth are  placed  so  as  to  complete  this  conventional 
design.  Yet,  through  all  the  subject-interest  of  the  picture 
being  concentrated  to  the  left  of  a  birch-stem  that  divides 
the  picture  into  two  not  very  unequal  parts,  the  humanly 
untenanted  space  to  the  right  of  the  stem  gives  an  effect 
of  unconsidered  naturalness  to  the  scene.  This  tree-stem 
has  clearly  played  an  important  part  in  the  fight  between 
the  Cavalier  and  the  victorious  enemy  who  has  gone 
his  way.  The  fight  has  taken  place  around  it.  A  sword- 
cut,  intended  for  the  Puritan,  has  been  intercepted  by 
the  tree,  and  the  broken  blade  is  still  fixed  in  it.  This  mis- 
chance left  the  Cavalier  at  the  mercy  of  his  foe.  Thus 
something  of  the  course  of  the  fight,  its  end,  and  the  help 
that  has  come,  perhaps  too  late,  to  the  wounded  man,  are  all 
either  suggested  or  shown  to  us.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  a  butterfly  has  alighted  on  the  broken  sword-blade.  In 
Millais'  picture.  The  Blind  Girl,  shown  in  the  same  exhibi- 
tion, a  butterfly  has  similarly  alighted  on  the  girl's  shawl. 
There  is  a  difference  of  motive  in  their  introduction,  but  the 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  159 

coincidence,  if  such  it  be,  is  interesting,  and  illustrative  of 
the  close  observation  of  detail  that  characterised  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  movement. 

Burton  has  not  fulfilled,  at  any  rate  in  the  amount  of  his 
work,  the  promise  of  this  picture.  His  picture  of  the  fol- 
lowing year,  A  London  Magdalen^  was  rejected  at  the 
Academy ;  and  ill-health,  non-recognition,  and  trouble  un- 
connected with  his  work,  have  combined  to  prevent  him 
from  putting  his  immistakable  powers  to  fullest  exercise. 
Depth  of  feeling,  sincerity,  dignity,  and  excellent  workman- 
ship mark  all  his  work.  Of  about  the  same  age  as  Burton — 
he  was  born  in  1830 — is  Arthur  Hughes.  His  work  is 
always  delicate,  delightful  in  colour,  simple  and  pure  in 
sentiment.  Perhaps  it  is  because  Millais  has  over-shadowed 
him  that  his  work  is  not  better  known.  He  has  nothing  of 
the  obvious  effectiveness  of  Millais.  No  picture  of  his  has 
been  sufficiently  strong  and  assertive  to  command  attention 
and  make  for  him  a  name.  It  is  easy  to  pass  him  by  as  an 
echo  of  the  stronger  voice.  Yet  what  he  has  to  say  is  his 
own,  not  another's,  and  it  is  delightfully  said.  The  Ece  of  St. 
Agnes,  April  Love,  Silver  and  Gold,  Home  from  the  Sea,  and 
many  other  pictures  are  too  good  to  be  overlooked  merely 
because  he  was  not  chief  among  the  prophets. 

In  1856  W.  L.  Windus,  a  Liverpool  painter,  exhibited  at 
the  Royal  Academy  a  picture  illustrating  the  old  Scotch 
ballad  "  Burd  Helen."  The  lady,  whose  lover  has  been 
faithless  to  her,  follows  him,  dressed  as  a  page.  They  come 
to  the  river's  brink,  and  he,  mounted  on  a  powerful  horse, 
makes  no  offer  to  take  her  upon  it,  but  leaves  her  to  swim 
across.  As  Ruskin  said,  the  cruelty  is  almost  incredible.  He 
noted,  as  robbing  the  picture  of  some  look  of  truth,  the  erect- 
ness  of  the  horse's  head.  Although  one  foot  already  splashes 


i6o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  the  water,  the  horse  exhibits  no  sign  of  fear  or  suri)rise. 
All  the  details  of  sky  and  moorland  are  painted  with  great 
literalness  ;  how  closely  so,  a  passage  in  Raskin's  criticism  of 
the  picture  would  reveal  to  one  who  had  never  seen  the 
picture  itself  or  any  reproduction  of  it.  After  the  remark 
about  the  horse,  he  says  :  "  I  have  some  doubt  also,  whether, 
unless  the  spectator  himself  were  supposed  to  be  wading  the 
ford,  so  as  to  bring  the  eye  almost  on  a  level  with  the  water 
surface,  the  reflection  of  the  sky  could  so  entirely  prevent 
the  appearance  of  the  pebbles  through  the  water.  They  are 
rightly  shown  through  the  dark  reflection  at  the  horse's  foot, 
and  rightly  effaced,  in  a  great  degree,  by  that  of  the  sky ; 
but  I  think  they  should  not  have  been  entirely  so."  This  is 
a  most  exacting  kind  of  criticism.  We  recollect  that,  three 
years  later,  Millais  said  that  Ruskin's  eye  was  only  fit  to 
judge  the  portraits  of  insects.  The  minute  examination  of 
Windus'  picture  makes  INIillais'  later  exasperation  quite  in- 
telligible, when  we  recollect  that  he  was  then  deliberately 
abandoning  the  minute  insistence  on  detail  that  Windus  had 
learned  from  him. 

The  cruelty  of  the  lover  in  the  picture  just  referred  to  is 
unflinchingly  shown.  So  is  the  tragic  result  that  may  come 
of  faithlessness  or  neglect  shown  in  another  picture  by 
Windus,  Too  Late.  Here,  again,  the  landscape,  open  fields 
seen  over  a  garden-hedge,  is  Pre-Raphaelite  in  treatment; 
and  the  painter  does  not  shrink  from  contemporary  costume. 
But  he  is  far  from  being  content  with  a  merely  pictorial 
motive.  We  are  not  simply  to  take  pleasure  in  his  render- 
ing of  the  visible  aspect  of  persons  and  things  as  he  repre- 
sents or  interprets  it.  A  child  brings  to  a  lady  who  is  dying 
of  consumption  a  lover  who  has  been  long  away.  She  looks 
at   him  as  if   in  half-uncomprehending  wonder.     A  sister 


THE   COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  i6i 

clasps  her  in  her  arms,  and  leans  her  face  against  the  wasted 
cheek.  The  man  hides  his  face,  while  the  child  looks  up 
at  him  wonderingly.  The  picture  was  too  tragically  sad  for 
Ruskin,  who  said :  "  Something  wrong  here :  either  this 
painter  has  been  ill,  or  his  picture  has  been  sent  to  the 
Academy  in  a  hurry,  or  he  has  sickened  his  temper  and 
dimmed  his  sight  by  reading  melancholy  ballads."  This  is 
really  an  eloquent  tribute  to  the  tragic  power  of  the  picture, 
which  probes  one  of  the  sorrows  of  life  to  its  very  depths. 
It  is  impossible  to  get  away  from  the  face  of  the  dying 
woman.  Madox  Brown  said  of  it :  "  The  expression  of  the 
dying  face  is  quite  sufficient — no  other  explanation  is 
needed."  Against  this  picture  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
Academy  Exhibition — it  was  shown  in  1859 — were  Tenny- 
son's lines : 

If  it  were  thine  error  or  thy  crime 

I  care  no  longer,  being  all  unblest ; 
Wed  whom  thou  wilt ;  but  I  am  sick  of  time, 

And  I  desire  to  rest. 

This  is  what  the  painter  had  been  reading.  It  may  be  said, 
Ruskin  said  as  much,  that  such  an  extremely  painful  subject 
should  not  be  painted.  All  I  care  to  say  here  is  that, 
whether  or  not  it  ought  to  be  painted,  it  has  been  painted, 
in  this  picture,  in  a  way  that  makes  Tennyson's  words,  that 
would  make  any  words,  seem  feebleness  itself  in  comimrison. 
After  the  two  pictures  just  discussed,  Windus  did  but 
little  work  of  importance. 

Frederick  Smallfield,  Matthew  James  Lawless,  Robert 
Martineau,  and  W.  J.  Webbe  are  other  painters  who 
came  under  the  influence  of  Holman  Hunt  or  Millais, 
Lambs  at  Play,  by  the  last  named,  was  obviously  suggested 
by  Holman  Hunt's  Strayed  Sheep.     Mr.  H.  W.  B.  Davis 


i62  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

similarly  painted  sheep  near  the  cliff-edges,  evidently  with 
this  picture  in  mind.  Robert  Martineau's  The  Last  Day  in 
the  Old  House  is  now  in  the  National  Gallery  of  British 
Art.  It  is  Hogarthian  in  subject :  a  wastrel  who  is  utterly 
indifferent  to  the  sorrow  his  wanton  extravagance  has  brought 
on  his  wife  and  his  aged  mother,  and  the  moral  ruin  into 
which  he  is  dragging  his  son.  In  fact,  his  callousness  is 
almost  incredible.  The  picture  is  painted  with  great 
elaboration  of  detail.  Henry  Wallis  was  another  painter 
who  adopted  the  Pre-Raphaelite  method.  His  best-known 
picture  is  Chatterton,  the  scene  being  the  poet's  death.  It 
was  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  1856.  Ruskin's 
appreciation  was :  "  Faultless  and  wonderful ;  a  most  noble 
example  of  the  great  school.  Examine  it  well  inch  by  inch ; 
it  is  one  of  the  pictures  which  intend,  and  accomplish,  the 
entire  placing  before  your  eyes  of  an  actual  fact — and  that  a 
solemn  one."  It  may  be  admitted  that  to  stand  the  test  of  at 
least  an  approximation  to  inch  by  inch  examination  is  a  merit 
in  such  a  picture.  The  details  of  the  garret  and  its  scanty 
furniture,  the  glimpse  of  the  outside  world  that  we  get  in 
the  morning  light,  neither  the  world  nor  the  light  of  it 
having  any  more  meaning  for  him  whose  lifeless  body  lies 
stretched  beneath  the  window,  the  torn  papers,  the  phial  of 
poison — all  this  is  material  to  the  story  to  be  told.  It  is 
not  mere  statement  of  fact  for  the  sake  of  the  statement; 
it  has  emotional  value.  Ruskin's  criticism  is  concise,  but 
accurate  and  sufficient.  An  entire  fact,  a  central  fact  and 
its  necessary  accessories,  is  placed  before  us;  and  it  is  a 
solemn  fact,  one  that  appeals  to  deep  emotions :  the  tragic 
ending  of  a  Hfe  of  promise. 

In  TJie  English  Pre-Raphaelite  Painters,  Mr.  Percy  Bate 
has  given  a  comprehensive  survey  of  those  painters,  English 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  163 

and  Scottish,  whose  art  was  either  temporarily  or  permanently 
affected  by  the  realistic  movement.  He  rightly,  I  think, 
sees  rather  the  influence  of  Madox  Brown  than  of  Rossetti 
in  the  historical  paintings  of  William  Bell  Scott.  Valen- 
tine Prinsep,  although  he  joined  in  the  decoration  of  the 
Oxford  Union,  to  be  referred  to  hereafter,  was  on  the  real- 
istic side.  J.  F.  Lewis,  who  was  much  older  than  the 
members  of  the  Brotherhood,  to  a  considerable  extent  anti- 
cipated the  movement.  I  shall  have  to  refer  to  him  again. 
G.  D.  Leslie,  G.  A.  Storey,  and  P.  H.  Calderon  may  certainly 
be  cited  among  those  who  owed  much  to  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
movement.  We  see  at  times  the  influence  of  Holman  Hunt 
and  Millais,  at  times  that  of  Rossetti ;  sometimes  we  can 
trace  both  influences  in  one  picture. 

Before  we  turn  to  the  romantic  side  of  the  movement, 
we  ought  briefly  to  consider  the  work  of  some  of  the  land- 
scape painters  who  heard  and  obeyed  the  call  to  return  to 
nature. 

Mr.  H.  W.  B.  Davis,  who  has  already  been  mentioned, 
clearly  came  very  near  to  Holman  Hunt  in  his  earlier 
work,  and  has  never,  in  his  pictures  of  cattle  and  landscape, 
departed  further  from  the  strict  letter  of  Pre-Raphaelite 
realism  than  did  ^Millais  in  his  later  work.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  John  Brett.  His  picture  The  Stonebreaker, 
exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  1858,  aroused  Ruskin's 
enthusiasm,  as  going  in  some  points  of  precision  past  any- 
thing the  Pre-Raphaelites  had  yet  done.  After  pointing 
out  the  almost  inevitable  minor  faults,  he  said:  "For  all  that, 
it  is  a  marvellous  picture,  and  may  be  examined  inch  by 
inch  with  delight."  Ruskin  wondered  what,  if  the  painter 
could  make  so  much  of  flints  and  a  view  from  the  Surrey 
downs,  he  would  make  of  the  Val  d'Aosta. 


i64  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  FAINTING 

Thither  the  painter  went,  the  same  summer,  and  executed 
what  was  little  more  than  a  marvellous  transcript  of  a  scene 
in  the  famous  valley.  Of  this  picture  Ruskin  said :  **  For 
the  first  time  in  history  we  have,  by  help  of  art,  the  power 
of  visiting  a  place,  reasoning  about  it,  and  knowing  it,  just 
as  if  we  were  there,  except  only  that  we  cannot  stir  from 
our  place  nor  look  behind  us."  But  he  found  the  picture 
wholly  emotionless.  "I  cannot  find  from  it,"  he  said, 
"that  the  painter  loved,  or  feared,  anything  in  all  that 
wonderful  piece  of  the  world."  There  were  "keenness  of 
eye  and  fineness  of  hand,  as  much  as  you  choose ;  but  of 
emotion,  or  of  intention,  nothing  traceable."  Is  not  this 
really  a  plea  for  selection,  indeed  for  impressionism  %  Brett 
painted  every  detail  of  the  scene,  so  far  as  he  could,  without 
emphasising  any  particular.  Cannot  we  say  that  this  was 
his  intention;  and  that  he  felt  the  beauty  of  each  detain 
Ruskin  would  not  have  it  so.  "  I  never  saw  the  mirror  so 
held  up  to  nature,"  he  said ;  "  but  it  is  mirror's  work,  not 
man's."  Brett,  however,  was  but  following  the  instruction 
of  Modei-n  Painters  to  go  to  nature  in  all  humility,  se- 
lecting nothing  and  rejecting  nothing.  Or  ought  he,  being 
now  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  to  have  passed  this  ele- 
mentary stage  ?  Ruskin  said  further  that  it  was  historical, 
meteorological  landscape,  but  "poetical — by  no  means."  I 
have  just  called  to  mind  a  passage  in  which  he  praised 
art  of  a  very  different  kind.  Of  David  Cox's  foliage  he 
said :  "It  is  altogether  exquisite  in  colour,  and  in  its  im- 
pressions of  coolness,  shade  and  mass;  of  its  drawing  I 
cannot  say  anything,  but  that  I  should  be  sorry  to  see  it 
better."  Here  is  actually  the  much-dreaded  word  "Im- 
pression ! "  I  have  already  quoted  Ruskin  as  forbidding 
us  to  be  offended  with  "  the  loose  and  blotted  handling  "  of 


THE   COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  165 

Cox,  and  as  saying  that  there  is  no  other  means  by  which 
Ills  object  could  be  attained,  and  further  that  what  is 
accidental  in  Cox's  mode  of  reaching  his  object,  "answers 
gracefully  to  the  accidental  part  of  nature  herself."  This 
looks  as  if  Pre-Raphaelitism  were  not  the  one  and  only 
sound  gospel  of  art,  even  according  to  Ruskin.  To  the  end 
of  his  life  Brett  painted  in  the  spirit,  and  almost  in  the 
letter,  of  this  early  work.  His  coast-scenes  and  seascapes 
are  like  so  many  vistas  through  open  windows.  He  recorded 
the  facts,  and  left  the  spectator  to  think  or  feel  about  them 
as  he  might.  In  his  Royal  Academy  Notes  for  1875, 
Ruskin  said  of  Brett's  picture  of  that  year,  Spires  and 
Steeples  of  the  Channel  Inlands :  "  Mr.  Brett,  in  his  coast- 
scene  above  noticed,  gives  us  things  without  thoughts"; 
and,  in  the  same  place,  he  states  the  principle :  "  Land- 
scape painting  shows  the  relation  between  nature  and  man ; 
and,  in  fine  work,  a  particular  tone  of  thought  in  the 
painter's  mind  respecting  what  he  represents."  Clearly, 
detail  should  be  a  means,  not  an  end;  it  should  be  kept 
in  close  relation  to  the  thought  or  emotion  to  be  expressed. 
It  may  be  much  or  little,  and  yet  the  picture  may  be  good 
art,  true  to  what  the  artist  has  felt,  not  merely  to  the 
external  facts,  from  which  he  has  to  select  only  such  as 
will  serve  his  artistic  end. 

Mention  of  the  work  of  Brett  inevitably  brings  to  my 
mind  that  of  Henry  Moore,  for  I  have  been  accustomed  for 
years  to  see  the  Northei-n  Archipelago  of  the  former,  and 
the  Mou7ifs  Bay  of  the  latter,  facing  each  other  in  one  of 
the  rooms  of  the  Manchester  Art  Gallery.  Henry  Moore 
began  as  a  painter  of  Pre-Raphaelite  landscapes  and  cattle- 
subjects.  Ruskin  praised  his  Siciss  Meadow  in  June, 
exhibited  in  1857.     In  the  following  year  he  exhibited  his 


i66  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

first  seascape,  and  to  the  sea  he  afterwards  remained  faithful. 
His  work  is  not  open  to  the  complaint  that  Ruskin  lodges 
against  that  of  Brett.  He  invariably  recorded  some  effect 
of  nature  that  he  had  enjoyed,  or  some  mood  of  nature  to 
which  he  had  responded.  His  later  work  was  far  from 
being  detailed  in  its  realism;  but  it  expressed  a  sincere, 
unaffected  and  poetical  love  of  nature.  The  waves,  the 
clouds,  and  light  breaking  through  the  clouds  and  gleaming 
on  the  waves,  were  the  staple  of  his  subjects;  it  was  a 
moving  world  that  he  sought  to  interpret;  and  the  ex- 
treme of  detail,  such  as  the  instantaneous  photograph  gives, 
would  have  been  fatal  to  any  suggestion,  any  illusion,  of 
motion.  As  it  is,  when  one  stands  before  a  seascape  by 
him,  the  waves  seem  actually  to  be  moving,  racing  after 
each  other  as  if  in  eager  chase ;  and,  in  the  sky  above,  the 
clouds  advance  in  their  own  more  measured  manner.  His 
pictures,  though  so  natural  in  effect,  were  none  the  less 
subtly  designed.  If  he  had  a  fault  it  was  that  his  colour, 
particularly  his  blue,  was  sometimes  monotonous,  almost  un- 
varied over  so  large  a  space  that  the  picture  as  a  whole  lost 
the  feeling  of  nature's  infinite  variety  and  of  atmospheric 
vibration.  He  sought  to  record  impressions,  and  somewhat 
more  of  impressionist  methods  would  at  times  have  been 
useful  to  him.  J.  W.  Inchbold  also  came  under  the 
influence  of  the  Pre-Eaphaelites,  and  his  landscapes  combine 
realism  with  true  poetic  feeling;  and  there  were  others, 
also,  who  need  not  be  individually  mentioned  here.  To  still 
more  recent  evidences  of  the  influence  of  Holman  Hunt 
and  Millais  realism  I  shall  have  to  refer  later  on. 

We  have  now  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  romantic  side 
of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  that  side  of  it  to  which 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt  would  deny  the  right  to  be  included  in 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  167 

it.  We  recollect  that  he  regards  himself  and  Millais  as 
having  been  at  any  time  the  only  true  Pre-Raphaelites ;  and 
Rossetti  as  having  been  from  the  first  so  steeped  in  Madox 
Brown's  medisBvalism  that  no  tuition  could  rid  him  of  it. 
Certainly  laborious  painting  of  natural  detail,  not  necessarily 
relevant  to  the  main  subject  of  the  picture,  was  not  to  his 
mind.  Close  observation  of  the  minutiae  of  natural  light, 
colour,  and  so  forth,  was  quite  apart  from  his  purpose. 
Beauty  was  to  his  purpose,  especially  beauty  of  colour, 
which  he  held,  and  rightly  held,  to  be  chief  among  the 
essentials  of  the  painter's  art.  In  this  he  showed  himself  a 
Romanticist.  The  Classical  school,  as  we  have  learned,  put 
drawing  in  the  first  place. 

We  have  seen  Rossetti  wearying  of  the  drudgery  of 
painting  jars  and  bottles  to  which  Madox  Brown  set  him, 
going  to  Holman  Hunt  for  instruction,  joining  in  the 
formation  of  the  Brotherhood,  and  painting  and  exhibiting 
Tlie  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin  and  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini. 
Then  he  withdrew  from  the  contest  with  the  critics,  leaving 
Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  to  carry  it  on  alone.  Already  his 
work  was  different  from  theirs,  in  both  method  and  aim. 
There  was  to  be  a  still  greater  divergence.  We  may  put  it 
that  whereas  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  told  any  story  they 
took  for  a  subject  in  the  way  they  thought  it  must  have 
happened,  or  would  have  happened  had  it  been  a  true  one, 
Rossetti  told  his  stories  in  what  he  thought  would  have 
been  a  beautiful  way  for  them  to  have  happened.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  beauty  was  foremost  in  his  thought. 
We  have  already  objected  to  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  saying 
that  "Rossetti  treated  the  Gospel  history  simply  as  a 
storehouse  of  interesting  situations  and  beautiful  personages 
for  the  artist's  pencil."    He  found  the  Gospel  history  to  be 


i68  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

this,  but  not  this  only  or  mainly ;  any  more  than  this  was  all 
that  Dante's  poetry  meant  to  him.  He  once,  indeed,  wrote 
to  Madox  Brown :  "I  am  writing  a  long  ballad  about  a 
magic  mirror.  ...  I  have  painted  the  better  part  of  a  little 
picture  besides,  but  don't  know  who  is  to  buy  it.  I  can't  be 
bothered  to  stick  idle  names :  a  head  is  a  head,  and  fools 
won't  buy  heads  on  that  footing."  This  sounds  like 
contempt  for  the  subject  in  painting;  yet  many,  perhaps 
most,  of  Rossetti's  works  have  a  quite  definite  subject : 
frequently  they  are  pictorial  versions  of  his  own  poems,  or 
of  Dante's  poems,  or  other  literary  works ;  and  when  Mr. 
William  Sharp  asked  him  how  he  would  reply  to  the  assevera- 
tion that  he  was  the  head  of  the  "Art  for  Art's  sake" 
school,  his  response  was  to  the  effect  that  "  the  principle  of 
the  phrase  was  two-thirds  absolutely  correct,  and  one-third 
so  essentially  wrong  that  it  negatived  the  value  of  the  whole 
as  an  aphorism." 

Rossetti  stands  alone  in  having  expressed  himself  with 
great,  and  not  greatly  unequal,  ease  and  power  in  both  poetry 
and  painting.  William  Morris,  also,  was  both  poet  and 
artist;  but  while  continuing  his  poetical  work,  he  early 
abandoned  pictorial  for  decorative  art.  Rossetti  has  been 
called  literary  in  his  painting  and  pictorial  in  his  poems; 
which,  in  the  extent  to  which  it  is  true,  only  means  that 
his  thought  and  emotion  formed  themselves  into  concrete 
images ;  which  is  true  of  all  of  us  in  degree,  and  of  some 
amongst  us  in  exceptional  degree.  When  a  youth  desirous 
of  being  a  painter  came  to  Rossetti,  he  was  asked  if 
he  had  any  thoughts  that  could  be  expressed  in  design. 
This  explains  the  saying  about  art  for  art's  sake.  Painting 
must  have  art,  must  have  design ;  but  it  only  does  its  final 
work  when  the  design  clothes  a  thought.     He  was  not  him- 


THE   COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  169 

self  a  really  well-trained  craftsman — he  had  been  too  indo- 
lent. To  have  to  do  a  thing  was  enough  to  turn  him  against 
it.  Technically  his  painting  was  inferior  to  his  poetry.  He 
once  expressed  his  regret  that  a  painting  could  not,  like  a 
poem,  be  teased  into  shape. 

His  art,  his  design,  it  has  been  already  said,  was  based  on 
colour.  "I  believe  colour,"  he  said,  "to  be  a  quite  indis- 
pensable quality  in  the  Mcjhest  art,  and  that  no  picture  ever 
belonged  to  the  highest  order  without  it ;  while  many  by 
possessing  it — as  the  works  of  Titian — are  raised  certainly 
into  the  highest  class,  though  not  to  the  very  highest  grade 
of  that  class,  in  spite  of  the  limited  degree  of  their  other 
great  qualities.  Perhaps  the  only  exception  which  I  should 
be  inclined  to  admit  exists  in  the  works  of  Hogarth,  to 
which  I  should  never  dare  to  assign  any  but  the  very 
highest  place,  though  their  colour  is  certainly  not  a  promi- 
nent feature  in  them.  I  must  add,  however,  that  Hogarth's 
colour  is  seldom  other  than  pleasing  to  myself,  and  that,  for 
my  own  part,  I  should  almost  call  him  a  colourist,  though 
not  aiming  at  colour.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  men 
who,  merely  on  account  of  bad  colour,  prevent  me  from 
thorouglily  enjoying  their  works,  though  full  of  other  quali- 
ties. For  instance,  Wilkie,  or  Delaroche  (in  nearly  all  his 
works,  though  the  H($micycle  is  fine  in  colour).  From 
Wilkie  I  would  at  any  time  prefer  a  thoroughly  good 
engraving — though  of  course  he  is  in  no  respect  even  within 
hail  of  Hogarth.  Colour  is  the  physiognomy  of  a  picture ; 
and,  like  the  shape  of  the  human  forehead,  it  cannot  be 
perfectly  beautiful  without  proving  goodness  and  greatness. 
Other  qualities  are  its  life  exercised,  but  this  is  the  body  of 
its  life,  by  which  we  know  and  love  it  at  first  sight." 

This  passage  is  instructive  in  various  ways.     It  is  interest- 


I70  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

ing  to  find  Rossetti  appreciating  Hogarth's  colour.  Recog- 
nition of  his  colour  as  harmonious,  though  not  brilliant,  and 
as  being  carried  through  his  design,  is  more  common  now 
than  it  used  to  be.  Colour  there  must  be ;  colour  alone  -will 
make  a  picture  great,  but  not  of  the  greatest ;  colour  is  the 
beautiful  body  of  a  picture  :  other  qualities  are  its  life  exer- 
cised.    Such  was  the  thoroughly  sane  creed  of  Rossetti. 

He  had  very  distinct  preferences  in  colour  ;  he  could  place 
his  favourite  hues  in  order  of  merit :  first,  pure,  light,  warm 
green;  second,  deep  gold  colour;  third,  certain  tints  of 
grey ;  fourth,  shadowy  or  steel  blue ;  fifth,  brown  with 
crimson  tinge ;  sixth,  scarlet.  These  he  liked,  each  for  its 
own  sake,  separately,  apart  from  any  others.  Then,  for  the 
rest,  he  said  that  other  colours,  comparatively,  were  only 
lovable  according  to  the  relations  in  which  they  were  placed. 
His  own  pictures  and  drawings  are  conspicuous  for  their 
rich,  glowing  colour.  The  works  of  the  great  Venetians 
hardly  lose  more  by  translation  into  monochrome  than  do 
Rossetti's,  so  thoroughly  did  his  own  practice  embody  his 
theory. 

It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  Rossetti  existed 
in  the  present  but  lived  in  the  past.  He  was  a  devotee  of 
beauty,  which  was  denied  almost  all  its  rights  in  the  time 
and  the  place  in  which  he  had  to  spend  his  days  on  earth. 
No  joyous  picture,  only,  indeed,  the  saddest  of  all  his 
pictures,  had  modern  London  for  its  scene.  Another  drawing 
gets  as  near  to  our  own  time  as  Dr.  Johnson's  day ;  for  the 
rest,  we  are  taken  back  to  the  Middle  Ages,  or  to  some  date- 
less time — the  time,  that  is,  when  beauty  holds  sway  in  life. 
The  one  drawing  that  does  set  us  down  in  the  mid-nineteenth 
century  shows  a  drover  who,  just  as,  in  the  early  morning, 
with  a  calf  fastened  in  his  cart,  he  is  about  to  cross  one  of 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  171 

the  bridges  that  lead  into  London,  sees  in  handsome  but 
disordered  dress  the  girl  whom  he  has  loved,  but  who  has 
long  been  lost  to  him  and  to  her  village  home.  As  she 
shrinks  away  from  him,  falling  to  the  ground  and  turning 
her  pain-stricken  face  to  the  wall,  he  seizes  her  by  her 
hands  and  seeks  to  raise  her  up  again,  his  face  instinct  with 
love  and  tender  sorrow.  The  calf,  taken  into  the  town  to  be 
slaughtered,  is  symbolic  of  her  fate.  Whether  for  her 
there  is  any  redemption  on  this  side  of  the  grave  we  are 
left  in  doubt.  In  the  sonnet  written  to  accompany  the 
picture  she  is  made  to  say — 

*  *  Leave  me— I  do  not  know  you — go  away  ! " 

This  was  Rossetti's  solitary  attempt  to  express  his  emotion 
through  the  medium  of  such  an  incident  as  might  be  met 
with  in  a  London  street.  After  this  there  was  no  more 
realism  ;  there  was  no  care  even  about  antiquarian  accuracy; 
he  merely  used  any  material  that  was  available  to  create  a 
beautiful  world  in  which  the  men  and  women  of  his 
imagination  might  live  and  move. 

One  ought  rather  to  have  said  women  and  men;  for 
woman,  her  love  and  her  beauty,  and  man's  love  for  her, 
was  almost  exclusively  the  subject  of  Rossetti's  art.  A 
cynic  might  almost  sum  up  the  romantic  side  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  movement  as  a  cult  of  woman's  beauty.  Robert 
Buchanan's  attack  on  "  the  fleshly  school  of  poetry,"  which 
had  special  reference  to  Rossetti,  was  unjust ;  but  the  sensu- 
ous and  the  sensual  are  much  in  evidence  in  both  his  poetry 
and  his  painting,  far  more  so  than  was  customary  at  the 
time.  To  what  extent  this  cult  was  an  obsession,  how  far 
Rossetti  was  morbid,  we  need  not  inquire  here.  He  has 
often  been  subjected  to  pathological  study.     Certain  it  is 


172  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

that,  especially  in  his  painting,  the  one  subject  almost  ex- 
clusively engrossed  him.  If  he  read  the  New  Testament, 
it  was  the  girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin,  the  Annunciation, 
Mary  Magdalene  at  the  house  of  Simon  the  Pharisee,  that 
attracted  him  as  subjects  for  pictures.  From  Dante  he  took 
the  love  of  Dante  for  Beatrice,  and  the  fatal  love  of  Paolo 
and  Francesca  da  Eimini.  From  the  Arthurian  legend  he 
took  Tristram  and  Iseult  and  Launcelot  in  Guenevere's  cham- 
ber. If  he  turned  to  Shakespeare's  "  Hamlet "  it  was  to  find 
Ophelia  there.  From  Browning  he  got  the  suggestion  of 
TliB  Laboratory,  where  a  woman  is  seeking  for  poison 
with  which  to  kill  off  a  rival.  From  Florentine  story  he 
chooses  the  Borgia  family.  Creating  his  own  subjects  we 
get  such  as  the  Founds  already  described,  Hesterna  Rosa,  a 
picture  of  satiated  sensuality,  and  all  the  long  list  of  subjects 
such  as  Hotc  They  Met  Themselves— ivfo  lovers  faced  by  their 
own  apparitions — Mona  Rosa,  The  Loving  Cu}!,  Mariana, 
Veronica  Veronese,  Fiammetta,  Lilith,  and  many  others. 
The  Blessed  Damozel,  both  in  the  poem  and  in  the  picture, 
carries  the  love  that  is  but  personal  attachment — Vegoisme  a 
deux  personnes,  in  the  French  phrase — beyond  the  grave; 
Astarte  Syriaca  recreates  the  goddess  who,  in  old-time  belief, 
delighted  in  such  love.  Rarely  does  he  appeal  to  anything 
higher  than  the  sensuous  emotion.  It  intrudes  even  when 
Joan  of  Arc  is  kissing  the  sword  of  deliverance.  Of  the 
love  that  endures  in  higher  love— that  is  wholly  disinterested, 
has  no  return  on  self — he  rarely  gives  a  hint.  Such  a 
sweetly  simple  picture  as  JoU  Cosur  seems  almost  out  of 
place  amongst  so  many  in  which  not  kind-heartedness,  but 
the  love  that  does  little  more  than  seek  self  in  another, 
gazes  out  upon  us  from  a  world  of  luxurious  beauty. 
Rossetti,  in  his  pictures,  has  interpreted,  almost  exclusively, 


BE ATA    BEATRIX 


DANTE   GAKKIKI,    ROSSK' 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  173 

one  phase  of  love,  and  that  not  the  highest ;  so  that,  had  we 
him  alone  for  guide,  we  might  take  this  fragment  for  the 
whole.  The  generous  emotions  for  which  we  use  such  words 
as  devotion,  charity — in  the  large  sense — unselfishness,  are 
not  suggested  by  his  pictures.  Though  there  is  no  dallying 
with  evil,  yet  the  word  purity  never  comes  to  our  lips, 
as  it  inevitably  does  when  we  look  at  Holman  Hunt's 
Isabella,  while  we  are  before  any  but  his  earliest  works; 
nor  do  we  find  ourselves  thinking  of  character  and  strength. 
Soul  does  not  stand  before  us  clear  from,  or  nobly  dominating 
sense.  If  the  faces  of  the  vast  majority  of  living  women 
did  not  say  things  that  the  faces  in  Rossetti's  pictures  rarely, 
if  ever,  say,  it  would  go  ill  with  mankind. 

The  picture  here  reproduced,  Beata  Beatrix^  though  an 
imaginative  work  of  great  power  and  beauty — it  was  the 
witness  of  his  art  to  his  love  for  the  wife  he  had  lost— does 
not  reveal  love  ennobled  by  death,  but  only  claims  con- 
tinuance, despite  of  death,  for  personal  attachment,  as  also 
does  The  Blessed  Damozel.  It  is  a  beautiful,  deeply  pas- 
sionate assertion  that  what  men  call  death  is  but  a  swooning 
into  another  life. 

Notwithstanding  his  imperfect  technical  equipment, 
Rossetti's  art  became  an  exceedingly  beautiful  and  subtly 
appropriate  language  for  the  emotions  he  sought  to  express. 
He  was  full  of  enthusiasm,  and  could  infect  others  with  his 
own  zeal — witness  his  carrying  off  to  Oxford,  despite  their 
protests,  a  number  of  young  painters,  Val  Prinsep,  Bume- 
Jones,  William  Morris,  Spencer  Stanhope,  and  others,  who 
had  no  previous  experience  in  mural  painting,  to  decorate 
with  pictures  the  still  damp  walls  of  the  new  Union  build- 
ing there.  In  his  intercourse  with  his  friends  and  fellow- 
artists   he   was,   when   in  health  of   mind  and  body,  con- 


174  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

spicuously  generous.  There  is  little  wonder  that  the  man, 
his  poetry  and  his  art,  have  had  an  influence  that  still  is 
strong. 

One  evening,  in  the  year  1856,  a  young  Oxford  under- 
graduate found  his  way  to  the  Working  Men's  College  in 
Great  Ormond  Street.  He  had  gone  with  a  definite  object, 
to  set  eyes,  if  he  could,  on  Dante  Rossetti,  who,  as  he  had 
learned,  taught  in  the  art  school  of  the  college.  He  wished 
to  see  Rossetti  because  he  had  read  "  The  Blessed  Damozel," 
and  had  seen  his  water-colour  of  Dante,  while  drawing  the 
head  of  Beatrice,  being  disturbed  by  people  of  importance, 
and  his  illustration  to  William  Allingham's  "  Maids  of 
Elfenmere,"  and  because  the  creator  of  these  works  of 
literature  and  art  had  become  to  him  a  hero.  This  hero- 
worshipping  undergraduate  was  Edward  Burne-Jones,  himself 
to  become  little,  if  anything,  less  than  a  hero  to  others. 
He  had  no  thought  of  speaking  to  Rossetti;  the  genuine 
hero-worshipper  never  aims  so  high.  It  would  be  enough  if 
he  could  see  him.  His  purpose  was  accomplished,  for 
Rossetti  came  to  the  college  that  evening.  More  than  this, 
a  few  nights  later  Burne-Jones  was  actually  introduced  to 
his  hero,  had  a  "  first  fearful  talk  "  with  him,  and  was  in- 
vited to  go  to  his  studio  on  the  following  day.  He  went, 
and  so  a  lifelong  friendship  was  begun.  Rossetti's  advice 
confirmed  Burne-Jones  in  an  already  formed  resolution  to 
devote  his  life  to  art,  and  he  left  Oxford  without  taking  his 
degree. 

Of  his  earlier  life  it  is  not  necessary  to  say  much  here. 
He  was  born  in  1834  in  Birmingham,  where  his  father  was 
in  business  as  picture-framer.  He  was  educated  at  the  King 
Edward's  School  there,  and  when  he  went  up  to  Oxford  it 
was   with   the  intention   of   eventually  entering  into  holy 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  17 S 

orders.  Difficulties  that  do  not  concern  us  here,  and 
counter-attractions  at  which  we  have  briefly  glanced,  led,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  a  complete  change  of  purpose.  This  hap- 
pened also  to  his  closest  college  friend  at  Oxford,  William 
Morris,  who  can  have  but  brief  mention  in  this  book,  be- 
cause he  early  gave  up  the  practice  of  painting  to  pursue, 
along  with  poetry  and  other  literary  production,  the  arts  that 
ally  themselves  to  use. 

It  was  Rossetti's  recorded  first  impression  of  Burne-Jones 
that  he  was  'one  of  the  nicest  young  fellows  in — Dream- 
land." It  was  a  true  impression.  It  was  in  dreamland 
that  Burne-Jones  spent  his  artistic  life.  He  was  a  Celt, 
and  whether  or  not  all  Celts  are  dreamers,  Burne-Jones  was 
one.  In  the  world  where  men  contend  for  wealth  and 
power  he  felt  himself  a  stranger.  He  was  at  home  only  in 
the  ideal  world  where  love  and  beauty  alone  have  sway. 
He  was  not  a  misanthrope.  He  was  full  of  kindness. 
Merriment  and  mischief  were  never  put  away  as  childish 
things.  But  he  could  take  no  pleasure  in  the  things  for 
which  most  men  live.  One  or  two  brief  sayings  of  his  own 
will  show  better  than  much  writing  about  him  why  he  spent 
his  working  life  in  dreamland.  "A  pity  it  is  I  was  not 
born  in  the  Middle  Ages.  People  would  then  have  known 
how  to  use  me — now  they  don't  know  what  on  earth  to  do 
with  me."  Again,  "I  have  learned  to  know  beauty  when 
I  see  it,  and  that's  the  best  thing."  And  again,  "This  is 
rather  sad  talk,  and  sounds  as  if  I  had  an  impossible  ideal — 
and  I  have,  and  a  bit  of  it  shall  come." 

The  old  buildings  of  Oxford,  the  cathedrals  and  churches 
of  northern  France,  had  told  Burne-Jones  and  Morris  that 
civilisation  had  once  been  more  beautiful  than  it  was  in 
their  day,  and  had  inspired  them  with  faith  that  some  day 


176  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

it  would  be  beautiful  again.  Morris,  in  after  years,  actively 
joined  in  Socialist  propaganda ;  not  in  vain,  perhaps.  Quite 
recently  a  Socialist  Member  of  Parliament  has  said :  "  The 
present  aim  of  Socialists  is  to  find  work  for  the  unemployed, 
food  for  the  hungry,  and  clothes  for  the  naked.  After  that 
it  will  make  the  conquest  of  the  intellectual  and  artistic 
world.  The  foundation  has  been  laid  for  the  most  beautiful 
edifice  which  has  ever  been  constructed."  As  this  was  said 
in  a  public  speech,  we  may  pardon  the  orator  for  talking 
of  a  building  as  being  already  constructed  for  which  only 
the  foundation  had  been  laid,  and  at  once  go  on  to  say 
that  the  Socialist  member's  hope  was  exactly  the  hope  of 
William  Morris — yes,  and  of  Ruskin  also.  It  was  also 
Burne-Jones's  hope ;  but  he  shrank  from  such  work  as  that 
to  which  Morris  set  himself — though  on  more  than  one 
occasion  he  uttered  a  protest  against  the  tyranny  of  selfish- 
ness— and  sought  rather  to  draw  his  fellows  to  better  things 
by  translating  into  picture  the  lovely  tales  of  long  ago ;  and 
it  may  be  that  he,  no  less  than  Morris  and  Ruskin,  has 
done  something  to  hasten  the  coming  of  a  better  day. 

For  a  time  his  art  was  little  more  than  an  echo  of  that  of 
Rossetti,  whose  pupil  he  became,  in  the  sense  of  watching 
the  older  painter  engaged  upon  works  which,  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  filled  him  with  admiration.  Then  his  own  in- 
dividuality, steadily  asserting  itself,  gave  to  his  own  art  an 
independent  character.  He  sought  by  unremitting  work, 
persisted  in  despite  frequent  ill-health,  to  make  up  for  the 
lack  of  early  training,  for  he  was  already  twenty-two  years  old 
when  he  turned  of  set  purpose  to  art;  and  he  so  far  suc- 
ceeded that,  although  he  never  attained  to  that  consummate 
mastery  of  the  brush  which  marks  the  greatest  craftsmen, 
he  executed  a  large  number  of  works  of  singular  and  refined 


THE   COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  177 

beauty.  He  was  greatly  influenced  by  the  Italian  masters, 
particularly  the  Florentines  ;  that  is  to  say,  his  art  was  Pre- 
Raphaelite  in  the  sense  in  which  that  of  Holman  Hunt  and 
Millais  was  not,  and  against  which  Holman  Hunt  has  so 
strongly  inveighed.  After  a  visit  to  Italy  in  1 872  he  said  that 
the  masters  he  cared  for  most  were  Michael  Angelo,  Luca 
Signorelli,  Mantegna,  Giotto,  Botticelli,  Andrea  del  Sarto, 
Paolo  Uccello,  and  Piero  della  Francesca;  and  he  further 
said  that,  on  this  visit,  artistic  excellence  alone  had  little 
charm  for  him,  so  that  ho  never  wanted  even  to  look  at 
Titian,  and  saw  the  Raphaels  at  Rome  for  the  first  time  as 
unaff'ected  by  them  as  he  could  see  the  cartoons  in  London. 
All  of  which  means  that  Bume-Jones  was  far  from  eschew- 
ing the  subject  in  painting,  and  that,  in  his  own  art,  colour 
would  be  subordinate  to  drawing.  His  colour  was  never 
brilliantly  glowing,  like  that  of  Rossetti;  indeed,  it  is  at 
times  open  to  the  charge  of  harshness,  and  is  best  when 
most  restrained.  His  sense  of  line,  also,  does  not  always 
carry  him  all  through  his  picture,  but  stops  short  in  the 
individual  figures  and  in  the  detail ;  so  that  among  his  best 
works  are  those  containing  only  one  or  two  figures. 

Objection  has  often  been  made  to  the  repetition  of  the 
same  face,  and  its  almost  invariable  lack  of  expression.  His 
defence  of  this  peculiarity  was  that  his  faces  were  not  por- 
traits of  people  in  paroxysms  of  terror,  hatred,  benevolence, 
desire,  avarice,  veneration,  etc.  It  was  but  a  variation  of 
this  defence,  or,  perhaps  we  should  say,  explanation,  when 
he  said,  in  effect,  that  his  figures  were  not  individuals,  but 
types.  So  Ruskin,  in  his  Oxford  lecture  entitled  "  Mythic 
Schools  of  Painting,"  distinguishes  between  Rossetti  as 
representing  persons  and  Burne-Jones  as  being  content  with 
personification,  so  that  "  had  both  Rossetti  and  he  been  set 

N 


178  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  illustrate  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  Rossetti  would  have 
painted  either  Adam  or  Eve — but  Edward  Burne-Jones,  a 
Day  of  Creation."  Dramatic  or  personal,  Ruskin  calls  the 
one  school  of  painting,  mythic  or  personifying  the  other. 
The  names  matter  little ;  the  things  matter  much.  Holman 
Hunt  and  Millais  were  more  emphatically  dramatic  painters 
in  this  sense  than  was  Rossetti.  We  may  almost  divide  the 
landscape  painters  also  into  the  two  orders,  dramatic  and 
mythic,  the  former  dwelling  on  detailed  life  and  beauty,  the 
latter  generalising  until  it  seems  not  so  much  the  visible 
world  that  we  see  as  the  invisible  power  that  lives  and 
operates  in  it.  The  landscape  in  not  a  few  of  Burne- 
Jones's  pictures — The  Mirror  of  Venus  and  Love  and  the 
Pilgrim,  for  instance — is  of  the  latter  kind. 

Burne-Jones,  in  his  art,  virtually  withdrew  himself  from 
his  own  age,  to  dwell  upon  things  he  believed  to  be  true  and 
beautiful  for  every  age.  This  is  how,  on  one  occasion,  he 
described  his  life-work  to  me.  He  did  not  withdraw  himself 
from  sympathy  with  his  own  age,  he  was  moved  by  its 
sorrows  and  pained  by  its  hideousness ;  but  he  stood  apart 
from  its  activities,  and  he  would  not  portray  it.  It  would 
not  be  well  for  every  one  to  do  this ;  but  it  was  well  for 
him ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  mistaken  than  to  regard  such 
an  attitude  as  morbid.  To  gather  truth  and  beauty  from 
the  past,  and,  by  setting  them  forth,  to  enforce  their  claim 
on  the  present  and  the  future,  is  a  sane  and  noble  endeavour. 
When  a  lady  wrote  to  Burne-Jones  contrasting  the  ignoble 
faces  she  had  seen  in  Regent  Street  with  the  divine  hush  of 
the  New  Gallery,  and  talked  of  artists  withdrawing  themselves 
from  this  wretched  world  like  the  gods  of  old,  he  begged 
a  friend  to  tell  him  that  he  had  not  wasted  his  whole  life 
in  running  after  things  no  man  would  ever  be  the  better  for  ! 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  179 

His  life-work  is  summed  up  in  the  opening  lines  of  Keats' 
"  Endymion."  To  him  a  thing  of  beauty  was  indeed  a  joy 
for  ever,  and  he  sought  to  create  shapes  of  beauty  that 
would  move  away  the  pall  from  dark  spirits,  amid  dearth  of 
noble  natures,  days  of  gloom,  unhealthy  and  o'er  darkened 
ways.  It  is  ill  paraphrasing  poetry ;  let  me  quote  the  poet, 
who  almost  describes  Burne-Jones's  work  when  he  includes 
in  such  shapes  of  beauty — 

The  grandeur  of  the  dooms 
We  have  imagined  for  the  mighty  dead  ; 
All  lovely  tales  that  we  have  heard  or  read  : 
An  endless  fountain  of  immortal  drink, 
Pouring  unto  us  from  the  heaven's  brink. 

It  is  thus  one  understands  Burne-Jones's  pictures.  This  is 
not  the  place  to  enumerate  and  describe  them,  even  could 
one's  halting  prose  keep  pace  with  their  swift-winged  poetry. 
He  lived  in  the  myths  and  legends  of  Greece ;  the  book  of 
Genesis  drew  from  him  a  visible  psalm  in  praise  of  the 
mystery  of  creation ;  the  adoration  of  the  Magi,  the  death 
on  the  Cross,  Christ  in  the  Day  of  Judgment — these 
things,  for  painting  or  for  window,  he  chose  from  the 
Christian  Belief.  One  of  the  loveliest  of  his  pictures  has 
for  its  subject  the  figure  of  Christ  stooping  from  a  cross  at 
a  wayside  shrine  to  kiss  a  merciful  knight  who  has  forgiven 
his  enemy.  It  is  needless,  almost,  to  say  how  much  the 
Arthurian  legend  meant  to  him,  a  Celt;  or,  again,  how  he 
delighted  to  turn  into  picture  the  story-telling  of  Chaucer. 
In  such  a  painting  as  The  Golden  Stairs  he  creates  his 
own  allegory.  Wliat  did  he  mean  by  this  company  of 
maidens,  each  with  her  instrument  of  music,  descending 
from  a  higher  to  a  lower  room  ?  Do  they  tell  us  of  a  music 
coming  from  above  into  human  life,  quenching  its  discords 


i8o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  making  ever  richer  its  harmonies  \  So  we  might  wander 
on  among  these  things  of  beauty,  which  the  unresting  though 
unhasting  artist  designed  through  many  years,  until,  while 
yet  there  were  unfinished  works  upon  his  easels,  and  many  a 
contemplated  work  was  not  begun,  the  brush  was  for  the  last 
time  laid  aside. 

Madox  Brown,  as  we  have  seen,  got  the  opportunity  at 
Manchester  of  painting  pictures  for  places  in  a  public 
building  where  they  were  permanently  to  remain.  Such  was 
the  kind  of  work  that  Burne-Jones  wished  to  do.  He  dis- 
liked miscellaneous  exhibitions,  and  regarded  easel-pictures 
as  but  a  poor  substitute  for  those  designed  for  particular 
places  and  actually  painted  on  the  spot.  He  would  have 
liked  to  paint  only  big  things  in  vast  spaces,  and  that  the 
common  people  should  wonder  at  them.  Little  opportunity, 
however,  came  to  him  for  work  of  this  kind,  except  in  the 
form  of  executing  designs  for  stained-glass  v/indows,  of 
which  he  did  many  for  churches  in  various  parts  of  the 
country.  The  one  chance  he  got,  apart  from  the  window- 
designs,  was  that  of  designs  for  mosaics  in  the  American 
church  at  Rome ;  and  he  did  not  see  the  completed  work. 
It  was  a  part  of  his  dream  that  art  should  not  be  a  mere 
luxury  for  the  few,  but  the  heritage,  both  in  practice  and 
enjoyment,  of  the  many.  Designs  of  his  were  executed  in 
tapestry  on  Morris's  looms ;  he  also,  of  course,  designed 
illustrations  for  books  that  Morris  printed  and  published. 
His  view  of  the  place  that  art  ought  to  occupy  in  life  was 
large  and  generous,  and  he  did  what  he  could  to  make  it 
prevail.  These  wider  questions  of  art  will  arise  again  when 
we  consider  the  work  of  other  painters,  such  as  G.  F.  Watts 
and  Leighton  in  England,  and  Puvis  de  Chavannes  in 
France. 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  i8i 

The  year  following  that  in  which  Bume-Jones  first  became 
acquainted  with  Kossetti  another  young  painter  sought  and 
obtained  both  his  acquaintance  and  his  friendship.  This 
was  Frederic  Sandys,  who,  born  in  1832,  the  son  of  a 
Korwich  painter,  had  already  made  considerable  advance  in 
art,  much  in  the  Pre-Raphaelite  manner  of  laborious  truth- 
fulness. Early  in  his  career  he  executed  many  drawings  for 
woodcuts ;  theii  he  produced  several  oil-paintings ;  and 
lastly,  his  work  mostly  took  the  form  of  chalk  drawing. 
His  oil-paintings  are  strongly  reminiscent  of  Rossetti's  work, 
but  with  inevitable  differences.  He  was  a  far  abler  crafts- 
man than  Rossetti,  especially  in  his  draughtsmanship  ;  there 
is  more  dramatic  intensity  in  his  works  than  in  those  of 
Rossetti ;  it  is  as  if  the  women  whom  Rossetti  has  shown  to 
us  quite  tranquil,  and  prone  we  cannot  always  tell  whether 
more  to  good  or  to  evil,  had  been  aroused  to  passionate 
action.  Cassandra  and  Helen,  Medea  preparing  poison  in 
a  brazier,  Morgan  le  Fay  looking  at  the  shirt  which  she  has 
woven  for  her  brother  King  Arthur,  and  which  will  bring 
death  to  the  wearer,  she  hating  him  for  his  purity  and  the 
love  and  loyalty  it  has  won  for  him :  these  he  paints,  and 
the  beautiful  Vivien,  not  actively  engaged  in  evil,  but  look- 
ing, it  may  be,  from  a  window  or  balcony  at  King  Arthur 
and  his  knights,  contemptuous  of  their  devotion  to  the  good, 
and  thinking  by  what  means  she  can  overcome  it  with  evil. 
All  these  works  are  beautiful  alike  in  draughtsmanship, 
design,  and  colour,  and  powerfully  imaginative.  The  beauty 
of  those  who  are  so  intent  on  evil  helps  to  realise  that 
depth  of  evil  which  is  the  coiTuption  of  the  best. 

Spencer  Stanhope  was  one  of  the  Rossetti-Burne- Jones 
group.  He  was  enlisted  to  execute  one  of  the  pictures  at 
the   Oxford  Union.     Many  of  his  paintings,  such  as  The 


i82  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Temptation  of  Eve  and  The  Waters  of  Lethe,  in  the  Man- 
chester Art  Gallery,  are  in  tempera,  and,  being  also  decorative 
in  design,  are  more  suited  for  an  architectural  setting  than 
for  exhibition  as  easel-pictures ;  indeed,  much  of  his  work 
has  been  done  as  church  decoration.  It  at  once  declares  its 
kinship  with,  particularly,  the  work  of  Burne-Jones,  though 
there  is  more  expression  in  the  faces  and  vigour  in  the 
action.  J.  M.  Strudwick,  after  passing  through  the 
Academy  Schools,  became  the  pupil  of  Burne-Jones,  of 
whom  he  is  often  regarded  as  little  more  than  an  echo.  It 
is  kinder,  and  more  just,  to  regard  him  as  a  kindred  spirit, 
for  alike  in  sentiment,  in  decorative  quality,  in  colour  and 
in  technique  there  are  marked  differences  between  his  work 
and  that  of  Burne-Jones.  His  world  is  one  where  every- 
thing is  beautiful,  and  all  or  most  of  those  who  dwell  in  it 
seem  as  if  the  storms  of  evil  had  ceased  to  trouble  them  and 
had  left  them  for  ever  calm ;  there  is  need  no  longer  for 
strenuous  virtue.  Walter  Crane  is  another  artist  who  came 
under  the  influence  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites.  When  only  a 
boy  he  was  attracted  by  the  work  of  Millais.  His  own 
work  has  been  chiefly  decorative,  and  purely  pictorial  art 
has  been  the  least  successful  part  of  his  achievement.  He 
has  produced  many  pictures,  however,  his  subjects  being 
chiefly  drawn  from  myth  and  legend,  and  he  must  be  counted 
in  the  Pre-Raphaelite  succession.  Frederic  Shields,  again, 
after  working  at  the  lithographic  bench,  and  later  executing 
delightful  drawings  of  child-life,  came  under  the  influence  of 
Rossetti,  to  whose  work  his  pictures  at  one  time  showed 
their  indebtedness  both  in  choice  of  subject  and  in  treat- 
ment. Always  a  religious  enthusiast,  he  has  for  a  long 
while  now  been  able  to  devote  his  art  to  what  he  holds  to 
be  the  highest  service.     He  has  done  work  for  the  private 


THE  COURSE  OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  183 

chapels  of  Sir  William  Houldsworth  at  Kilmarnock  and  the 
Duke  of  Westminster  at  Eaton  Hall ;  while,  more  recently, 
the  late  Mrs.  Russell  Gurney  entrusted  to  him  the  task  of 
painting  a  series  of  pictures  in  the  chapel  known  as  the 
Chapel  of  the  Ascension,  which  she  caused  to  be  built  for 
the  purpose  in  the  Bayswater  Road.  This  work,  which  is 
steadily  approaching  completion,  is  one  of  the  most  thought- 
ful and  loftily  conceived  examples  of  its  kind  executed  in 
our  time.  Fra  Angelico  cannot  have  brought  more  devotion 
to  his  work  than  has  Mr.  Shields ;  and  even  those  who  find 
great  limitations  in  his  art,  particularly  in  his  colour,  who 
feel  that  his  subjects  are  overweighted  with  symbolism,  and 
that  the  action  and  gestures  of  his  figures  are  often  over- 
strained, can  hardly  fail,  even  if  also  they  do  not  think  as 
he  thinks  about  the  lofty  themes  of  which  he  treats,  to  be 
impressed  by  the  many  noble  qualities  of  his  work  and  the 
deeply  spiritual  purpose  that  informs  it. 

There  is  an  interesting  and  highly  creditable  incident  in 
the  career  of  Frederic  Shields  that  deserves  to  be  recorded 
here.  He  spent  many  years  of  his  earlier  life  in  Manchester; 
and  this  connection  with  the  city  led  to  the  arrangement 
that  he  should  share  with  Madox  Brown  the  decoration  of 
the  large  room  in  the  Town  Hall  there.  Each  of  them  was 
to  execute  six  mural  paintings,  and  Madox  Brown  was  to 
complete  his  quota  first.  When  Mr.  Shields  saw  his  friend's 
work,  he  was  convinced  that  the  whole  series  should  be 
done  by  the  one  hand,  and  he  absolutely  refused  to  do  his 
share  of  the  work,  with  the  result  that  all  the  twelve 
paintings  were  done  by  Madox  Brown.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  was  better  thus;  but  the  act  of  self-denial 
none  the  less  deserves  its  meed  of  praise,  and  it  is  satis- 
factory  to   think  that,   at   the  Chapel   of   the   Ascension, 


1 84  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Shields  has  found  work  for  which  he  was  better  fitted  than 
the  illustration  of  the  history  of  Manchester,  and  at  which 
he  could  continue  with  unabated  ardour  through  many 
years. 

T.  M.  Rooke  is  another  artist  of  merit,  who  worked  at 
one  time  with  Burne- Jones,  and  has  painted  subject-pictures 
of  much  power  and  beauty,  taking  his  subjects  mainly  from 
the  Bible  and  the  old  myths.  In  later  years  his  water- 
colour  drawings  of  mediaeval  buildings  and  towns,  records 
of  beauty  that  is  fast  disappearing,  have  been  interesting 
features  in  many  an  exhibition. 

In  his  book  already  mentioned,  Mr.  Percy  Bate  instances 
Sir  Noel  Paton  as  having  come  under  the  influence  of  Millais. 
His  works,  and  the  laborious  detail  in  them,  are  too  well 
known  to  need  more  than  mention  here.  He  was  very 
prolific,  finding  his  themes  in  history,  legend,  poetry,  and  the 
Biblical  narratives.  His  work  was  always  accomplished; 
but  he  failed  as  a  colourist,  and  his  treatment  of  some  of 
the  highest  themes  bordered  at  least  on  the  sensational. 
Mr.  Bate  notes  also  the  influence  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  on 
several  Scottish  painters,  but  they  need  not  detain  us  here. 
Mrs.  Stillman  and  Mrs.  de  Morgan  clearly  belong  to  the 
romantic  side  of  the  movement. 

Of  the  original  members  of  the  Brotherhood  only 
llolman  Hunt,  Millais,  and  Rossetti  take  their  place  among 
the  chief  painters  of  their  time.  James  Collinson  was  the 
only  other  member  who  did  any  considerable  amount  of 
painting,  but  his  work  was  not  of  conspicuous  merit.  He 
became  a  Roman  Catholic,  left  the  Brotherhood,  and  his 
place  was  taken  by  Walter  Howell  Deverell,  who,  however, 
died  in  1854  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  before  his  powers 
were  fully  matured.     Madox  Brown,  of  course,  takes  his 


THE  COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELTTISM  185 

place  along  with  the  three  painters  who  led  the  organised 
movement ;  and  when  to  these  four  we  have  added  Burne- 
Jones,  we  have  the  five  men  who,  by  the  quality  and  the 
amount  of  their  work,  stand  out  as  the  chief  exponents  of 
the  two  sides  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement.  Among 
those  we  have  mentioned  to  whom  minor  place  only  is 
accorded,  there  is  not  one  who  has  not  done  work  of  at 
least  very  considerable  merit ;  and  the  whole  group,  leaders 
and  followers,  would  leave  English  art  grievously  the  poorer 
were  it  possible  to  remove  their  names  from  its  roll.  They 
form  a  numerous  as  well  as  a  strong  company  of  artists, 
and  their  work  has  been  marked  by  sincerity  both  in  crafts- 
manship and  in  thought  and  feeling.  Millais  is,  perhaps, 
the  only  one  of  them  all  of  whom  we  are  at  all  inclined  to 
think  as  being  in  any  measure  spoiled  by  success — ^many  of 
them  met  with  only  too  little  success — and  !Millais'  work, 
even  when  he  was  most  below  his  best,  was  still  so  whole- 
some and  so  good  as  art  that  one  can  hardly  think  of  it 
without  regretting  anything  said  in  the  way  of  adverse  criti- 
cism. How  delightful,  within  its  limits,  in  design  and  in 
colour  and  in  expression  of  the  human  interest  of  its  sub- 
ject, is  even  such  a  picture  as  The  Boyhood  of  Raleigh  here 
reproduced !  Yet  it  is  not  of  his  best,  and  many  of  the 
lesser  painters  of  the  school  have  done  far  greater  work  than 
this. 

The  effect  of  the  movement  upon  our  art  is  by  no  means 
exhausted,  nor  is  it  likely  to  be.  It  insisted  on  things  that 
are  permanently,  if  not  exclusively,  valuable.  Even  those 
who  could  not  closely  follow  the  teachings  of  the  school 
have  learned  from  it  the  meaning  of  sincerity  and  high  en- 
deavour; and  our  exhibitions  to-day  show  that  the  letter 
as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  movement  still  has  power.     Only 


i86  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

an  example  or  two  must  be  given.  Mr.  Byam  Shaw  almost 
startles  us  with  a  picture,  The  Boer  War,  1900,  that  comes 
close  in  its  rendering  of  detail  of  flower  and  leaf  to  Millais' 
Ophelia.  There  is  good  reason  for  the  detail  in  each  case. 
Ophelia  is  passing  to  her  death,  oblivious  now  of  the  leaves 
and  flowers  and  birds  she  has  individually  loved,  and  their 
closely  recorded  loveliness  adds  to  the  pathos  of  the  scene. 
The  lady  in  Mr.  Shaw's  picture  has  grown  familiar  with 
every  plant  and  bush  by  the  stream-side.  She  has  often 
been  amongst  them ;  but  one  who  has  been  there  with  her 
can  now  be  with  her  no  more;  and,  in  her  grief,  the  old 
familiar  things  about  her,  so  Avell  known  in  every  least  par- 
ticular, have  lost  for  her  their  beauty.  In  other  pictures 
Mr.  Shaw  shows  his  indebtedness  to  the  romantic  side  of 
the  movement.  Miss  Eleanor  F.  Brickdale  and  Mr.  Cayley 
Robinson  owe  much,  though  in  very  different  ways,  to  the 
Pre-Raphaelites.  These  are  conspicuous  instances ;  and  there 
are  many  other  painters  now  contributing  to  our  exhibitions 
whose  work  must  have  been  very  different  but  for  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  example. 

Have  we  sufficiently  made  clear  to  ourselves  its  charac- 
teristics? The  reader  may  turn  now  with  advantage  to  an 
earlier  page  (42),  where  is  given  Mr.  William  Rossetti's 
statement  of  the  points  upon  which  all  the  members  of  the 
Brotherhood  were  agreed.  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  sums  up  the 
movement  thus  :  "  Looked  at  as  a  whole  from  Madox  Brown 
to  Millais,  from  Watts  to  Rossetti,  from  the  Westminster 
cartoons  to  The  Last  of  England,  from  hahella  to  The 
Huguenot,  as  from  The  Annunciation  to  Dante^s  Dream,  the 
movement  of  1850  was  this:  new  men  longing  for  a  new 
art,  substituting  strange,  novel,  individual  gesture  for  com- 
monplace   generalisations;    and    fresh,    dry,    pure    colour. 


THE  COURSE   OF  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  187 

brilliant  by  its  juxtapositions,  for  sunken,  overlaid  colour ; 
in  one  word,  they  exchanged  the  line  of  expression  for  the 
line  of  decoration,  and  clear  tones  for  warm  tones.  In  its 
simplicity  this  was  Pre-Rapliaelitism."  Similarly,  Herr 
Muther  says  that  the  programme  of  the  school  was  truth, 
strict  and  keen  study  of  nature ;  "  even  at  the  expense  of 
total  effect,  every  picture  was  to  be  carried  out  in  minutest 
detail,"  the  painters  abandoned  abstract  beauty  of  form  for 
the  "characteristic,  energetic,  angular;  but  their  figures 
painted  faithfully  from  nature  are  the  vehicles  of  a  meta- 
physical idea."  This  is  how  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement 
appears  to  two  foreign  critics  of  our  art.  The  subject- 
pictures  generally  tell  a  story,  be  the  theme  great  or  simple. 
In  the  great  majority  of  cases  our  ability  to  understand  the 
subject  depends  upon  our  knowledge  of  literature.  The 
figures  in  the  pictures  do  not  explain  themselves,  and  why 
they  look  happy  or  sad,  mild  or  fierce,  or  what  else  ;  as  the 
people  we  meet  in  daily  life  explain  themselves  to  us.  There 
are  exceptions,  of  course,  but  they  prove  the  rule.  Then, 
what  these  people  are  doing  has  to  be  done  naturally; 
gesture  and  expression  must  fit  emotion,  not  the  require- 
ments of  "abstract  beauty  of  form."  This  characteristic  is, 
of  course,  most  in  evidence  in  the  work  of  the  realists,  and 
pre-eminently  so  in  that  of  Madox  Brown.  Lastly,  there  is 
tlie  insistence  upon  detail,  in  every  part  of  the  picture,  in 
what  is  of  chief  importance  to  the  subject,  and  what  is  of 
least  or  no  importance,  detail  such  as  the  eye  could  not  see 
were  the  scene  itself  before  us,  except  by  long  examination 
of  it,  bit  by  bit.  Both  the  general  effect  of  the  scene,  such 
as  the  Impressionists  give,  and  fluid  colour,  are  inevitably 
lost  by  this  method ;  one  kind  of  truth  is  obtained  at  the 
cost  of  another,  and  beauty  is  imperilled  if  not  sacrificed. 


i88  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

It  is  not  only  in  the  work  of  a  Holman  Hunt  that  we  find 
this  insistence  on  detail,  or  in  the  work  of  those  who  were 
esi)ecially  influenced  by  him  and  by  the  earlier  work  of 
Millais ;  we  find  it  in  the  paintings  of  Burne-Jones,  Strud- 
wick,  and  others  on  the  romantic  side  of  the  movement, 
though,  with  them,  the  decorative,  as  distinguished  from  the 
realistic  purpose  of  their  art — they  never  give  us  the  least 
chance  of  thinking  that,  with  a  little  more  success  on  the 
part  of  the  artist,  nature  itself  would  seem  to  be  before  us 
• — enables  them  to  put  the  detail  to  more  artistic  use. 

The  strength  of  Pre-Raphaelitism  lies  in  expression  of 
thought  and  the  higher  emotions.  To  those  who  think  that 
such  things  should  be  left  to  literature,  this  is  its  weakness, 
for  it  means  that  sensuous  beauty  is  not  the  sole  or  even  the 
paramount  consideration.  Herbert  Spencer  entered  the  lists 
to  combat  Holman  Hunt's  theory  of  art.  In  an  essay,  "  The 
Purpose  of  Art,"  included  in  FacU  and  CommmtSy  he 
wrote  :  "  Artists  seek  to  magnify  their  office  on  the  ground 
that  art  is  useful  for  intellectual  culture :  that  reason  being 
the  only  one  assigned.  Years  ago  my  attention  was  draAvn 
to  this  mistaken  conception  by  a  disquisition  with  which 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt  accompanied  an  exhibited  picture — 
*  Christ  in  the  Workshop,'  it  may  have  been.  The  educa- 
tional value  of  art  was  the  theme  of  his  proem.  By 
implication  it  appeared  that  it  was  not  enough  for  a  picture 
to  gratify  the  aesthetic  perceptions  or  raise  a  pleasurable 
emotion.  It  must  teach  something.  The  yielding  of  satis- 
faction to  certain  feelings  is  not  regarded  as  an  aim  to  be  put 
in  the  foreground,  but  the  primary  aim  must  be  instruc- 
tion." Perhaps — certainly,  I  think — this  is  too  crudely 
stated.  No  artist  would  assign  intellectual  culture  as  the 
only  claim  of  his  art  to  be  useful.     The  utmost  the  Pre- 


THE   COURSE   OF  PRE-KAPHAELITISM  189 

Kapliaelites  would  say  is  that  art  maij  teach  something, 
may  appeal  to  thought  and  the  higher  emotions,  need  not  be 
restricted  to  gratifying  aesthetic  perceptions  or  raising  a  plea- 
surable emotion ;  and  that,  in  thus  taking  other  than  the 
sensuous  ground,  it  does  not  necessarily  trespass  on  the 
domain  of  literature ;  that,  indeed,  it  has  means  of  inter- 
preting ethical  and  spiritual  things  that  are  denied  to  words. 
And  it  is  not  the  Pre-Eaphaelites  alone,  nor  only  a  few 
artists  here  and  there  in  this  and  that  country,  who  hold 
this  view  of  the  functions  of  art.  Hitherto  it  has  been 
general.  Those  who  think  otherwise  are  a  minority,  prob- 
ably among  artists,  certainly  among  those  for  whom  the 
artist  works.  Whether  or  not  the  future  will  more  rigidly 
define  the  boundaries  of  literature  and  art  we  may  leave  the 
writer  of  the  future  to  say. 


CHAPTER   V 
PAINTING   IN   FRANCE 

IT  is  not  the  aim  of  this  book  carefully  to  assay  the  art  of 
various  countries  during  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century.  It  is  written  primarily  for  English  readers,  and 
emphasis  is  laid  upon  English,  or,  to  use  the  more  com- 
prehensive word  so  much  insisted  upon  nowadays,  British  art. 
Were  this  not  so,  the  Pre-Kaphaelite  movement  should  not 
have  had  so  much  attention  as  I  have  given  to  it.  It  has 
had  this  attention  because  our  own  art  must  here  be  our 
chief  concern,  and  because  the  movement  has  had  a  potent 
influence  upon  that  art  during  the  last  fifty  years.  It  has 
not  been  by  the  work  of  those  alone  who  have  been  closely 
identified  with  the  movement  that  our  art  has  been  saved 
from  the  tyranny  of  tradition  and  made  free  of  nature  and 
life.  Nor  has  it  been  maintained  here  that  the  pioneers  of 
the  movement  were  wholly  right  in  what  they  did  and  what 
they  left  undone,  what  they  praised  and  what  they  blamed. 
There  were  painters  who  held  on  their  way  uninfluenced  by 
the  movement ;  there  were  others  who  took  from  it  what 
seemed  to  them  good  and  eschewed  what  seemed  to  them 
evil.  In  their  work  also  tradition  was  modified  and  art 
advanced.  They  have  formed  the  large  majority  of  our 
painters,  and  an  account  of  what  some  of  the  principal  ones 
among  them  have  done  has  yet  to  be  given,  and  co-ordinated 

190 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  191 

with  the  work  of  tlie  Pre-Raphaelites,  before  we  shall  have 
got  even  a  summary  of  the  achievement  of  our  painters 
during  the  half-century.  Other  modern  tendencies  in  art 
began  to  make  themselves  felt,  and  increasingly  so  as  the 
century  drew  to  its  close.  The  growing  influence  of  French 
art  upon  our  own  has  led,  as  we  have  already  seen,  to  strong 
protestations  in  favour  of  a  narrow  nationalism  in  art,  re- 
gardless of  the  mischief  that  results  from  breeding-in  in 
any  department  of  life. 

The  Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  as  we  have  seen,  owed 
nothing  in  its  inception  to  the  contemporary  art  of  other 
countries.  With  Holman  Hunt  it  was  a  revulsion  from  the 
conventions  and  triviality  of  the  art  of  his  own  coimtry; 
Madox  Brown  disliked  contemporary  French  art,  and  M. 
de  la  Sizeranne  thinks  he  decided  upon  his  methods  almost 
in  a  spirit  of  defiance.  He  was  greatly  influenced  by  the 
old  Italian  masters,  particularly  those  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury ;  so  also,  at  a  later  date,  as  we  have  seen,  was  Burne- 
Jones ;  and  doubtless  the  romantic  side  of  the  movement 
owed  much  to  Rossetti's  Italian  blood — he  never,  we  may 
note,  actually  went  to  Italy.  From  contemporary  art  the 
Pre-Raphaelites  learned  little  or  nothing.  It  was  not  so 
with  the  Impressionist  movement  in  France.  The  Barbizon 
school,  which,  by  its  close  study  of  nature,  made  Impres- 
sionism possible,  owed  no  small  debt  to  English  landscape 
painting;  and,  again,  in  1870,  Monet  and  Pissarro,  we 
recollect,  were  confirmed  in  their  method  of  interpreting 
nature,  both  by  English  landscape  and  by  English  art. 
Turner  had  endeavoured  to  render  the  most  subtle  and 
fleeting  atmospheric  efi'ects.  Take  Rain^  Steam  and  Speedy 
the  picture  of  which  a  reproduction  appears  opposite  an 
earlier  page.     As  the  title  suggests,  the  artist  has  not  con- 


192  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

cerned  himself  primarily  with  the  stable  elements  in  the 
landscape ;  they  are  but  a  means  to  an  end  ;  they  are  sacri- 
ficed, almost  blotted  out  by  the  rain  which,  even  in  England, 
is  but  transitory.  More  fleeting  still  is  the  steam,  first  in- 
visible, then,  in  its  moment  of  change  visible,  soon  invisible 
again.  Then  there  are  dimly  seen  through  the  rain-laden  air, 
fugitive,  also,  themselves,  not  so  much  the  train  and  the  hare 
as  the  rush  of  the  train  over  the  viaduct,  and  the  swift 
flight  of  the  hare  which  is  seeking  to  escape  from  the  train. 
It  was  such  work  as  this  that  arrested  the  attention  of  the 
two  French  painters  and  showed  them  the  way  along  which 
they  were  to  travel  even  further  than  Turner  had  gone. 

So  English  art  influenced  French  art.  During  the  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  however,  French  art 
fully  returned  the  service  rendered.  English  and  Scotch 
students  in  large  numbers  went,  as  they  still  go,  to  Paris. 
The  efiects  are  visible — only  too  visible  some  will  say — in 
all  our  exhibitions,  even  in  that  stronghold  of  convention, 
the  Royal  Academy.  And  for  this  reason  it  is  desirable 
that  before  we  complete  our  study  of  English  painting  we 
should  follow  the  general  course  of  painting  in  France 
during  the  half-century  we  are  surveying. 

The  Impressionist  movement  in  France,  like  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  movement  in  England,  was  but  one  phase  of  the 
growth  of  the  whole  art  of  the  nation.  It  was,  however, 
so  important  as  to  justify  our  having  taken  it  apart  along 
with  the  work  of  some  of  the  painters  who  were  most 
closely  associated  with  it,  if  not  participators  in  it.  By  the 
mid-century  art  had  won  for  itself  the  right  to  find  its  sub- 
ject-matter in  modern  life.  In  their  various  ways,  Delacroix, 
Courbet,  and  the  Barbizon  landscape  painters  had  freed  art 
from  the  oppression  of  classicism.     Painters  were  now  free 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  193 

to  take  their  subjects  from  modern  life,  as  well  as  to  inter- 
pret history,  legend,  and  myth.  We  have  seen  that  one 
marked  difference  between  the  Impressionists  and  our  own 
Pre-Raphaelites  was  that,  whereas  the  latter  went  chiefly  to 
books,  the  former  went  to  life  for  their  subjects,  and  this 
actuality  pervades  the  work  of  many  more  French  painters 
than  the  Impressionists  and  their  close  allies. 

In  completing  our  survey  of  French  painting  we  will 
first  take  account  of  its  portrayal  of  contemporary  life ;  and 
to  begin  with,  we  will  take  the  work  of  the  painters  who, 
like  Millet  and  Courbet  before  them,  were  attracted  by  the 
life  of  the  country  rather  than  by  that  of  the  town.  The 
former  life  is  the  basic  one.  The  country  can  do  without 
the  town,  but  not  the  town  without  the  country.  Life  in 
the  country,  also,  comes  close  to  nature,  which  indeed  is  all 
around  it ;  and  art  has  a  noble,  if  not  its  noblest  sphere, 
when  it  deals  with  nature  and  the  elemental  facts  of  human 
life. 

We  begin,  therefore,  with  the  life  of  the  fields  which, 
under  the  hand  of  Millet,  became  an  epic,  and  almost  a 
tragic  one.  By  Jules  Breton,  who  was  some  thirteen  years 
his  junior,  it  was  treated  more  as  an  idyU,  though  he  did 
not  depart  so  far  from  the  hard  facts  as  did  George  Mason 
and  Frederick  Walker  and  this  country.  II is  reapers  and 
gleaners  are  strongly-built  women  easily  capable  of  the 
work  they  have  to  do,  hard  though  it  be.  He  takes  an 
optimistic  view  of  the  life  of  the  peasant.  We  can  see  the 
influence  of  Millet's  peasants  in  the  miners  and  iron-workers 
of  Meunier.  If  the  Belgian  sculptor  had  learned  from 
Jules  Breton  instead  of  from  Millet,  the  King  of  the 
Belgians  would  never  have  feared  that  his  works  might 
powerfully  reinforce  the  socialist  propaganda. 


194  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

A  generation  later  than  Jules  Breton  came  Bastien- 
Lepage,  born  at  Damvillers,  in  Lorraine,  in  1848.  As  a 
boy  he  lived  in  the  country.  School-days  over,  he  went  to 
Paris,  and,  engaged  part  of  the  day  in  post  office  work,  he 
spent  the  rest  of  his  time  painting  under  Cabanel.  In 
after  years  he  sharply  criticised  the  methods  in  vogue  in  his 
student  days,  in  particular  the  imitation  of  classical  art. 
He  set  himself,  when,  after  the  war  of  1870,  he  returned  to 
Damvillers,  to  paint  the  people  and  things  around  him ;  he 
threw  off  the  classical  yoke,  and  became  and  remained 
through  the  whole  of  his  short  life — he  died  in  1884,  when 
only  just  over  thirty-six  years  of  age — an  uncompromising 
realist.  It  has  been  suggested  that,  had  he  lived,  he  might 
have  softened  the  vigour  of  his  realism,  escaped  from  a 
narrow  literalism  into  a  broader  treatment  of  his  subjects. 
This  was  not  to  be ;  and  we  have  to  accept  him — or  as  do 
some,  reject  him — as  an  uncompromising  recorder  of  facts. 

If  he  did  not  quite  know  the  peasant's  life  from  within, 
as  did  Millet,  he  was  closely  familiar  with  it,  and  his  rustics 
will  carry  conviction  to  those  who  have  come  into  close  con- 
tact with  the  toilers  in  the  fields.  The  man  and  woman  in 
his  Hay  Harvest  recall  the  Mat  and  Dolly  of  the  chapters 
that  Richard  Jefferies  called  "  The  Field  Play."  The  beggar, 
whom  the  child  watches  as  he  turns  away  from  the  door, 
while  he  puts  in  his  wallet  the  food  that  has  been  given  to 
him,  does  not  differ  in  essentials  from  tramps  and  beggars  we 
have  known ;  and  many  a  village  in  other  lands  has  its  aged 
P^re  Jacques,  though  not  everywhere  will  he  go  with  his 
grandchild  gathering  firewood  among  the  trees.  Lepage's 
village  lovers,  his  haymaker,  his  girl  with  a  cow,  are  all 
authentic  renderings  of  an  unlettered,  hardworking  pea- 
santry.    Their  surroundings    also,    field,    orchard,   garden, 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  195 

and  simple  homestead,  in  which  industry  seems  hardly  to 
get  the  better  of  the  large  untidiness  of  nature,  are  recorded 
witli  a  fidelity  tliat  the  landscape  of  our  Pre-Raphaelites, 
Avith  all  its  minute  elaboration  of  detail,  cannot  equal.  ^Mr. 
Holman  Hunt's  lovers,  in  The  Hirelimj  Shepherd,  cannot  be 
accepted  as  unquestioningly  as  the  couple  who,  in  the  pic- 
ture of  Bastien-Lepage,  have  in  their  bashful  awkwardness 
a  more  serious  barrier  between  them  than  the  rickety  fence ; 
and  all  the  minute  elaboration  of  detail  in  the  landscape  in 
the  former  picture  does  not  bring  us  as  near  to  nature  as  the 
French  painter's  more  suggestive  rendering. 

In  such  pictures  as  Tlie  Annunciation  and  Joan  of  Arc  he 
clothed  old  stories  in  modern  dress,  believing  that,  thereby, 
the  spirit  of  them  was  more  fully  expressed.  Here,  in  one 
particular,  at  least,  he  came  very  near  to  what  has  been  both 
alleged  and  denied  to  be  a  tenet  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites: 
the  painting  of  an  exact  portrait  of  the  living  person  who 
most  nearly  realised  the  artist's  conception  of  a  character 
taken  from  history  or  literature.  As  a  portrait  painter  he 
found  his  way  to  the  character  of  his  sitters,  seeming 
almost  to  tell  the  story  of  their  life.  The  friendship  be- 
tween him  and  his  Russian  pupil,  Marie  Baskirtscheff,  and 
their  death  within  a  month  of  each  other,  from  the  same 
disease,  consumption,  form  one  of  the  most  pathetic  stories 
in  the  annals  of  art. 

L^on  L'Hermitte  belongs  to  the  same  generation  as 
Bastien-Lepage,  and,  like  him,  was  born  in  the  country. 
His  art  has  been  chiefly  devoted  to  the  life  of  the  peasantry. 
He  sets  them  before  us  in  sober  colour  and  clear  light ;  a 
strong,  fairly  prosperous,  well-clothed,  contented  people 
they  seem  to  be.  There  is  no  pervading  note  of  sadness  as 
with  Millet,  no  idealism  as  with  Jules  Breton,  little  that  is 


196  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

pathetic  as  with  Bastien-Lepage.  These  people  work  hard, 
but  pay-day  comes  round,  and  their  religion  brings  poetry 
into  their  lives.  Church,  churchyard-wall,  houses,  farm 
buildings,  are  all  in  good  repair ;  the  painter  by  no  means 
regards  the  peasant's  lot  as  an  undesirable  one.  These 
accounts — may  we  put  it  ? — of  the  life  of  the  peasant  vary 
according  to  the  temperament  of  the  artist,  according  also  to 
actual  variety  in  conditions  of  life.  Not  any  one  of  them 
is  exclusively  to  be  trusted. 

Somewhat  younger  than  the  men  just  mentioned,  Dagnan- 
Bouveret  has  also  given  a  quite  cheery  version  of  village  life 
as  the  most  important  part  of  his  life-work.  He  likes  to 
dwell  upon  the  times  when  toil  in  the  fields  or  the  woodland 
is  suspended,  so  that  the  higher  elements  in  human  nature 
may  be  called  into  play.  Women  receiving  the  consecrated 
bread  in  church,  a  group  of  women,  Bretonnes  au  Pardon, 
seated  on  the  grass,  while  one  of  their  number  reads  from  a 
book  of  devotion,  and  two  men  stand  by  listening  rever- 
ently, while  above  other  groups  in  the  distance  the  church 
spire  rises :  such  are  the  subjects  of  two  of  his  pictures. 
In  another  we  see  a  number  of  woodmen  in  the  forest. 
They  also  are  resting  from  their  toil,  and  are  listening 
entranced  to  a  youth  playing  upon  his  violin.  They  are 
robust,  he  is  slight  and  pale — one  of  their  number  who 
cannot  work  as  they  can,  but  who  is  capable  of  doing  other 
things  which  they  cannot,  and  in  return  for  which,  as  their 
faces  show,  they  will  gladly  let  him  share  the  fruit  of 
their  labour,  for  man  doth  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God.  This 
picture  vividly  realises  the  right  relation  of  the  specially 
gifted  to  those  who  in  no  particular  rise  above  the  general 
level.     Not  to  live  a  life  as  widely  different  as  may  be  from 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  197 

the  many,  but  to  be  one  of  them,  cultivating  the  special  gift 
for  the  love  of  it,  not  for  gain,  and  gladly  using  it  so  that 
others  to  whom  it  is  denied  may  yet  enjoy  the  beauty  it 
creates — in  a  word,  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to 
minister — such  is  the  artist's  true  place,  as  it  is  the  true 
place  of  each  among  his  fellows.  "VVe  often  lose  sight  of 
this  relation  in  the  complex  artificialities  of  life.  Here  we 
see  it  in  its  simplicity  and  elemental  strength. 

Charles  Cottet,  another  painter  of  the  life  of  simple  folk, 
will  serve  to  bring  this  phase  of  art  quite  to  the  present 
time.  He  has  painted  in  quiet,  even  sombre  tones,  the 
people  of  Brittany.  He  takes  us  among  such  people  and 
such  scenes  as  we  read  of  in  Pierre  Loti's  Pecheur  d^Islande. 
Let  us  look,  for  example,  at  his  triple  picture  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg. In  the  central  panel  the  fishers  are  having  a  last 
meal  with  their  friends  before  they  put  out  to  sea.  It  is 
not  only  the  dim  light  of  the  lamp  that  makes  the  scene  a 
solemn  one,  or  the  night  visible  through  the  open  window. 
The  event  is  in  itself  solemn,  a  veritable  sacrament ;  a  com- 
munion, it  may  be  a  last  communion  in  this  world.  These 
men  and  women  may  never  again  break  bread  together  on 
this  side  of  the  grave.  The  hour  of  parting  must  come — 
has  come,  if  we  turn  to  right  and  left  of  the  central 
picture.  To  the  right  we  see  the  fishermen  out  in  their 
boat ;  they  have  the  air  of  those  in  whom  the  sadness  of  the 
farewell  has  not  yet  been  dispersed  by  the  need  for  action 
and  the  thought  of  return.  To  the  left,  the  women,  seated 
upon  a  cliff,  are  sad  also,  and,  as  their  attitudes  seem  to  say, 
murmur  a  prayer ;  for  they  watch  the  boat  as  it  passes  away 
into  the  darkness,  and  soon  the  last  glimmer  of  its  light  will 
be  gone.  In  all  this  there  is  nothing  sensational.  It  is  a 
plain  record  of  an  everyday  event;  but  of   an  event,   the 


igS  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

going  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  that  has  ever  been  felt  to  be 
impressive ;  and  the  painter  has  shown  it  to  have  epic 
dignity.  He  has  also  shown  his  sense  of  the  sacredness 
that  the  love  which  centres  upon  even  the  humblest  home 
imparts  to  human  life.  This  threefold  picture,  thus  render- 
ing homage  to  love,  is  worthy  to  be  an  altar-piece. 

Such  are  some  of  the  chief  realistic  painters  who  have 
variously  followed  the  lead  given  by  Courbet  and  Millet,  in 
sympathetically  studying  the  life  of  the  peasantry  and  the 
fisher-folk.  The  name  of  Butin  may  be  mentioned  as 
another  of  those  who  have  found  by  and  on  the  sea  subjects 
for  their  art.  There  is  no  need,  however,  to  add  name  to 
name.  It  is  enough  to  see  that  it  has  become  possible  to  go 
out  into  the  country  and  to  the  fishing  hamlet,  and  paint 
what  is  there  in  all  essentials  as  it  is.  To  some  painters  the 
interest  will  be  almost  purely  pictorial ;  light,  colour,  and 
form  will  be  their  chief,  perhaps  their  sole  concern.  Others 
will  add  to  these  interests,  Avill  perhaps  make  them  subserve, 
the  intimate  human  interest.  However  this  may  be,  and 
there  is  room  for  both  renderings,  it  has  been  discovered  and 
fully  shown  that  there  is  truer  poetry  in  the  mere  facts  of 
daily  life  than  in  all  the  pastorals  ever  painted. 

From  the  realists  who  have  studied  the  life  of  the  country 
and  the  sea,  men  born,  for  the  most  part,  amid  the  scenes 
and  people  they  have  painted,  and  remaining  deeply  attached 
to  them,  we  pass  to  those  who  have  interpreted  the  life  of 
the  town.  Alfred  Koll,  a  Parisian  by  birth,  has  combined 
both  interests,  the  town-workman,  at  his  work  or  on  strike, 
and  in  angry  mood,  alternates  with  milkmaids  and  cattle  in 
the  fields,  and  idyllic  scenes  in  which  nymphs  play  their 
part.  Jean  rran9ois  Raffaelli,  also  a  Parisian  by  birth,  has 
made  the  city  and  the  district  just  outside  the  fortifications 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  199 

his  special  study.  He  comes  very  close  to  the  Impressionists, 
in  fact,  he  exhibited  with  them ;  and,  under  their  influence, 
while  putting  in  the  forefront  of  his  endeavour  the  realisa- 
tion of  various  types  of  human  character — caractensme  is  a 
word  he  has  used  to  define  his  aim — he  has  also  sufficiently 
attended  to  play  of  light,  and  realised  the  all-pervading 
atmosphere,  so  as  to  give  his  pictures  something  of  the 
illusion  of  reality.  In  pure  landscapes  he  shows  himself  to 
be  almost  one  of  the  school. 

But  subject-pictures  have  been  the  staple  of  his  work; 
and  here,  while  Manet  and  Degas  painted  the  Paris  of  the 
boulevard,  the  theatre  and  the  music-hall,  he  was  fascinated 
by  the  debatable  ground  that  skirts  the  city.  The  spreading 
of  the  hideous  town,  as  William  Morris  describes  one 
feature  of  the  growth  of  our  civilisation,  awakens  emotions 
which  the  artist  can  put  to  use.  In  the  vacant  space  left 
outside  the  walls  of  Paris,  neither  town  nor  country  pre- 
vails ;  a  halt  has  been  called  to  the  spread  of  the  town,  yet 
the  country  has  been  destroyed.  Such  a  district  as  this  has 
its  own  peculiar  type  of  inhabitant  and  passer  by.  Needless 
to  say,  the  rich  do  not  frequent  it,  nor  do  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  artisan  class ;  but  we  find  there  those  wliom  we  may 
call  the  camp-followers  of  the  city,  who  keep  body  and  soul 
together  by  activities  that  can  hardly  be  dignified  with  the 
name  of  work.  This  pitiful,  waste  land,  and  the  pitiful, 
waste  lives  that  are  on  and  about  it,  have  found  Raffaelli 
the  subject  of  many  a  picture  in  which  both  the  scenes  and 
the  people  in  it  seem  to  make  a  mute  appeal  to  us  from 
distances  that  our  sympathy,  but  not  our  help,  can  reach. 
Raffaelli  does  not  moralise ;  he  does  not  preach  to  us ;  he 
merely  sets  the  facts  before  us.  The  facts  speak,  however,  as 
do  many  other  pathetic  and  tragic  facts  of  life.     Whether 


200  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  will  or  not,  the  painter,  if  he  show  human  life  as  it  is, 
inevitably  is  in  so  doing  a  teacher, 

Raflfaelli  has  gone  within  the  city  and  painted  life  there 
also,  the  life  chiefly  of  the  workers  and  the  very  poor.  That 
which  Madox  Brown  crowded  into  one  picture,  to  the 
danger  both  of  his  art  and  of  the  credibility  of  his  facts, 
Raffaelli  has  set  forth  in  many  pictures  and  drawings,  which 
separately  are  convincingly  true,  and  which,  collectively, 
assembling,  yet  not  bringing  into  impossibly  close  conjunc- 
tion, workers  and  idlers  of  many  kinds,  help  in  that 
imaginative  realisation  of  life  as  it  is,  which  is  so  much 
needed  to  take  away  the  reproach  that  one-half  the  world 
does  not  know  how  the  other  half  lives. 

In  the  Luxembourg,  in  the  Caillebotte  room,  containing 
the  Impressionist  pictures,  Raffaelli  is  represented  by  a  large 
canvas  showing  a  politician  addressing  a  public  meeting. 
He  stands  on  a  platform.  Some  of  his  chief  supporters 
are  with  him.  Behind  him  rises  tier  above  tier  of  auditors ; 
in  front,  a  few  men,  immediately  below  the  platform,  suggest 
a  still  larger  audience  that  he  faces.  We  cannot,  perhaps, 
call  this  picture  beautiful,  but  it  is  impressive.  Clearly  the 
speaker  holds  his  audience.  He  is  seeking  so  to  direct  their 
thoughts  and  stir  their  emotions  that  they  will  devote 
themselves  to  the  furtherance  of  purposes  which  probably 
affect  the  workmen  of  the  city  and  the  vagrants  of  the 
banlieue.  ]^ot  beautiful,  the  picture,  perhaps,  but  the 
speaker  and  his  audience  are  set  before  us  with  almost  the 
illusion  of  life.  Subtle  gradations  of  tone  put  them  at  the 
right  distance  from  each  other  and  surround  them  with  air ; 
and  sombre  as  is  the  general  effect — a  meeting  composed  of 
black-coated  men  is  never  a  brilliant  spectacle — the  painter 
has  not  forgotten  the  claims  of  colour;  he  has  used  dull 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  201 

red  about  the  platform  and  in  the  ties  of  some  of  the 
audience,  to  relieve  what  would  otherwise  be  a  monotony  of 
black  coats  and  sallow  faces. 

James  Tissot,  after  finding  subjects  in  the  picturesquenesa 
of  the  early  Renaissance,  took  the  fashionable  world  for  his 
subject.  He  lived  and  painted  much  in  England.  In  later 
years  he  turned  with  enthusiasm  to  the  life  of  Christ.  He 
is  represented  in  the  Luxembourg  by  four  pictures,  which 
form  a  series  illustrating  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son. 
They  are  commonplace  in  colour,  packed  tight  with  detail, 
and  quite  Hogarthian  in  their  treatment  of  the  subject. 
The  parable  receives  not  only  a  modern,  but  an  English 
setting.  The  drama  begins  in  a  seaport  inn,  where  the 
father  is  giving  the  son  good  advice  before  he  goes  into  a 
far  country.  Other  members  of  the  family  are  present, 
including  the  elder  brother,  who  looks  moodily  out  of  the 
window.  In  the  second  picture  the  prodigal  has  reached 
the  far  country,  and  is  in  a  dimly  lighted  room  where 
Japanese  girls  are  dancing.  In  the  third  picture  we  are  at 
an  English  seaport  again,  and  the  prodigal,  almost  in  rags, 
kneels  on  the  landing  stage,  clasping  his  father's  knees.  He 
has  worked  his  passage  home,  the  last  part  of  it  in  a  cattle- 
boat.  Again  the  elder  brother  is  present,  looking  on 
indifferently.  In  the  fourth  and  last  picture  the  fatted  calf 
is  being  killed  in  thoroughly  English  fashion.  The  family 
is  having  an  al  fresco  meal  somewhere  up  the  river.  The 
elder  brother  has  been  rowing.  He  comes  up  the  steps 
from  the  river,  where  are  his  boating  companions,  with  a 
sweater  tied  round  his  neck.  He  is  also  just  filling  his  pipe. 
His  father  invites  him  to  join  in  the  merry-making.  His 
response  seems  doubtful.  At  the  moment  he  is  scowling  at 
the  returned  prodigal.     And  at  this  point,  as  also  in  the 


202  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

parable  itself,  the  story  ends.  Looking  at  these  pictures  in 
the  Luxembourg  Gallery,  we  could  more  easily  think  our- 
selves in  the  National  Gallery  of  British  Art,  were  it  not 
that  the  English  people  and  English  scenes  have  the  air  of 
being  seen  from  the  outside. 

Giuseppe  de  Nittis,  an  Italian  who  made  Paris  his  home, 
was  a  close  associate  of  the  Impressionists,  joining  with 
them  in  their  separate  exhibitions.  It  was  when  painting 
with  him  that  Manet  first  made  trial  of  jplein  air  methods. 
He  studiously  rendered  the  varying  efi'ects  of  atmosphere, 
never  forgetting  that  we  do  not  live  in  an  exhausted 
receiver.  He  found  his  subjects  in  the  streets,  the  quays, 
the  squares,  the  gardens  of  Paris,  and  at  the  race-course 
outside  the  city.  The  scene  itself,  and  the  people  in  it, 
divide  the  interest.  In  this  his  pictures  resemble  the  earlier 
ones  of  Degas,  and  some  of  those  of  Manet  and  Renoir. 
He  visited  England,  and  painted  London  as  he  had  painted 
Paris.  Like  Monet  and  Pissarro  before  him,  he  revelled  in 
the  atmospheric  effects  produced  by  broken  gleams  of  sun- 
shine, and  by  mist  and  fog. 

Paul  Albert  Besnard  and  Eugene  Carriere,  both  born  in 
1849,  have,  each  in  his  own  way,  carried  forward  the 
rendering  of  light  and  atmosphere  which  the  Impressionists 
made  the  chief  end  of  their  art.  Besnard,  who  gained  the 
Prix  de  Rome,  has  abandoned  academic  work  to  produce 
pictures  remarkable  for  subtle  effects  of  light  and  for 
brilliant  colour.  Nothing  is  too  daring  for  him  to  essay. 
His  Portrait  d^Artiste  in  the  Luxembourg,  showing  an 
engraver  at  work  in  his  studio  under  the  semi-transparent 
screen,  is  not  only  a  fine  character-study,  but  is  a  subtle 
study  of  the  play  of  cold  grey  light.  The  prevailing  colour 
is  blue-grey,  with  the  brown  of  the  copper-plate  upon  which 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  203 

the  engraver  is  working,  and  of  a  vase,  for  contrast.  Also 
in  the  Luxembourg  arc  his  Entre  deux  Rayons  and  Femme 
qui  se  chauffe,  each  a  brilliant  study  of  the  play  of  light 
upon  flesh.  In  the  former  picture  a  woman  is  between  the 
window  and  the  fire,  and  there  is  a  mere  drift  of  light  and 
colour — orange,  deep  red,  and  pink  against  purple-blue.  In 
the  latter  picture,  where  a  nude  woman  is  seated  on  the 
ground  before  the  fire,  the  flesh  tints  pass  from  blue  through 
white  and  pale  pink  to  full  pink  and  gleaming  gold.  In  the 
Luxembourg,  also,  is  a  landscape  by  him,  Port  d' Alger  au 
Crepuscule,  and  here  blue,  green,  purple,  and  gold  are 
transformed  into  vibrating  light.  Besides  other  pictures, 
in  which,  similarly,  Besnard  has  played  harmonies  of  light 
and  colour  on  flesh  and  costume  and  landscape,  he  has  taken 
part  in  the  decoration  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  there  the 
decorative  quality  of  his  art,  and  his  capacity  for  working  on 
a  large  scale,  are  obvious. 

The  aim  of  Carriere,  who  died  in  1896  at  the  early  age 
of  forty-seven,  was  markedly  different  from  that  of  Besnard. 
Subtlety,  not  brilliancy  of  light  attracted  him.  He  was  pre- 
eminently a  painter  of  children  and  their  mothers.  His 
pictures  are  wholly  simple  and  natural ;  they  are  lyrics  in 
praise  of  domestic  love.  He  is  an  Impressionist  in  the  sense 
that  his  figures  are  swathed  in  atmosphere,  so  as  to  give  the 
illusion  of  reality.  This  effect  might  be  taken  to  be  the 
only  aim  of  his  art  by  one  who  only  looked  casually  at  his 
pictures.  But  the  look  must  be  very  casual  that  does  not 
discover  the  sympathetic  rendering  of  character.  Again, 
although,  in  order  to  concentrate  the  interest  upon  the  facial 
expression  as  well  as  to  give  the  sense  of  reality,  all  detail  is 
merely  suggested,  there  is  no  lack  of  draughtsmanship. 
Here   is  no  covering   of  incompetency  by  fine  names  and 


204  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

theories,  which  is  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  summary  of  Impres- 
sionism. The  drawing  is  masterly  both  in  expressiveness 
and  in  rhythm.  In  the  picture,  Iniimite^  in  the  Moreau 
collection  at  the  Louvre,  the  group  of  a  mother  and  two 
children  is  finely  composed.  In  every  particular  the  draw- 
ing is  admirable.  One  hand  of  the  mother,  and  one  of  a 
girl  perhaps  fifteen  years  old,  are  seen;  and  the  contrast 
between  the  firmness  of  the  former,  the  result  of  years  of 
labour,  and  the  softness  of  the  latter,  is  one  of  the  many 
truly  human  touches  in  the  picture.  The  contrast  goes 
even  further  than  this.  It  is  perhaps  in  keeping  with  her 
mood  that  the  girl's  hand  should  be  limp  and  expressionless. 
She  is  closing  her  eyes  and  yielding  to  the  baby's  kiss  and 
embrace.  Yet  a  girl's  hand  can  hardly  be  as  expressive  as 
that  of  a  woman ;  and  the  mother's  hand  here  is  not  only 
firm,  but  it  shows  the  capability  that  comes  with  use.  Her 
face  has  an  air  of  tender  solicitude  for  her  children,  and  tells 
also  of  years  of  household  care.  Grey  and  black  prevail  in 
the  picture,  relieved  by  the  brown  of  the  hair,  and  the  pale 
carmines  of  the  children's  faces.  There  are  no  definite 
lines  anywhere;  but  the  more  defined  edge  of  the  girl's 
sleeve,  and  of  the  wedding-ring  on  the  woman's  finger,  give 
assurance  of  solidity;  the  gold  of  the  ring  being  invalu- 
able also  in  the  colour-scheme  of  the  picture. 

It  was  easy,  of  course,  for  those  who  first  saw  these 
misty-looking  canvases  to  say  that  evidently  the  chimney 
had  been  smoking.  This  kind  of  thing  goes  along  with  the 
soapsuds  and  whitewash  criticism  which  so  angered  Turner 
when  his  Storm  at  Sea  was  first  exhibited.  I  must  not  go 
over  old  ground;  but  probably  not  every  critic  has  dis- 
covered how  indistinctly  we  see  everything  but  the  one 
small  object  upon  which  our  gaze  is  fixed.      And,  even 


i;knfant  aux  coNrnuREs 


EUGENE  CARRlilRE 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  205 

though  Carriere  adopted  a  somewhat  rhetorical  device  to 
give  the  iUusion  of  reality,  and  to  suggest  the  "breathing- 
sphere  "  in  which  we  live ;  it  not  only  was  justified  by  its 
success  in  both  these  ways,  but  it  brings  all  the  figures  in 
his  pictures  into  what  seems  more  than  a  physical  relation 
with  each  other ;  and,  on  the  purely  aesthetic  side,  it  gives 
occasion  for  subtle  play  of  tones.  It  is  interesting  to  find 
that  Carriere  expressed  his  indebtedness  to  Henner,  Rodin, 
Degas,  Monet,  and  Fantin.  It  is  impossible  not  to  go  further 
back  and  think  of  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez.  He  is  cer- 
tainly of  their  lineage. 

To  refer  in  detail  to  others  of  his  pictures  would  only  be 
to  vary  in  particulars  what  has  been  said  of  Intimite.  He 
is  well  represented  in  the  Luxembourg  by  La  Famille  and 
McUeimite.  The  variety  of  expression  in  the  five  children 
in  the  former  picture,  according  to  both  age  and  tempera- 
ment, and  the  essential  diflerence  between  the  expression  of 
all  of  them  and  that  of  the  mother,  are  most  sympatheti- 
cally rendered.  In  the  latter  picture  a  mother,  with  a  child 
asleep  on  her  knee,  leans  forward,  takes  the  face  of  an  older 
child  in  her  hand,  and  kisses  him.  There  are  the  same  con- 
centration and  intensity  here  as  in  the  first-named  picture ; 
and  so  we  might  go  through  the  full  list  of  his  works.  Our 
illustration  does  not  show  him  in  the  same  vein  as  the  three 
pictures  just  mentioned ;  but  it  is  a  delightful  child-study, 
and  exquisitely  painted.  The  youngster  has  found  a  pot  of 
jam;  he  is  using  his  fingers  to  transfer  the  jam  to  his 
mouth,  and  to  his  cheeks— and  almost  certainly  to  his 
clothes.  Conscience  is  by  no  means  making  a  coward  of 
him ;  and  his  mother  has  not  yet  arrived  upon  the  scene. 
He  is  supremely  happy. 

In  the  Thedtre  de  Bellevillej  Carriere  successfully  applied 


2o6  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

his  method  to  a  subject  outside  the  domestic  shpere.  Of  his 
Christ  8ur  le  Croix  in  the  Luxembourg  I  hesitate  to  speak. 
It  has  seemed  to  me  that  he  has  been  content  with  the  mys- 
tery and  the  gloom,  and  missed  the  higher  expressiveness 
that  the  subject  requires.  His  portraits  do  not  call  upon 
him  to  leave  ground  where  he  is  a  master. 

I  said  on  an  earlier  page  that  when  we  came  to  such  work 
as  that  of  Miss  Mary  Cassatt,  Degas'  American  pupil,  we 
should  see  to  what  irreproachable  uses  his  methods  could  be 
put.  Carri^re,  we  know,  was  influenced  by  Degas,  and 
nothing  could  be  further  removed  than  his  pictures  from 
the  kind  of  charge  often  preferred  in  this  country  against 
Impressionism,  if  not  against  French  art  as  a  Avhole.  By 
perhaps  the  most  important  part  of  her  training,  and  by 
years  of  residence  and  work.  Miss  Cassatt  belongs  rather  to 
France  than  to  her  native  country.  She  is  an  exponent  of 
the  Impressionist  methods,  and  has  worked  a  great  deal  in 
pastel,  as  well  as  in  oil,  water-colour,  and  colour-etching, 
delighting  in  pure  and  brilliant  colour,  and  always  surround- 
ing with  air  the  children  and  their  mothers,  whom,  like 
Carri^re,  she  takes  for  the  subject  of  most  of  her  pictures. 
Her  women  and  children  have  the  charm  and  grace  of 
simple  goodness,  and  we  always  seem  to  take  them  un- 
awares, to  have  the  chance  of  watching  them  for  a  moment, 
at  the  work  or  the  play  of  home,  or  enjoying  its  affection. 
Realism  has  been  accused,  to  its  disadvantage  as  compared 
with  idealism,  of  tending  towards  sensationalism.  Of 
course  it  lends  itself  to  sensationalism  in  ways  that  idealism 
does  not.  There  is  even  an  idealism  that  is  incapable  of 
either  good  or  evil;  that  is  mere  emptiness.  It  is  nega- 
tive like  asceticism.  Such  pictures  as  those  of  Carri^re 
and  Miss  Cassatt  go  far  to  prove,  what  perhaps  needs  little 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  '2a^ 

l)roof,  that  the  purest  ideal  is  in  the  real,  that  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  not  far  off,  is  very  near — is  within.  Why  are 
the  ballet-dancers  and  the  drink-soddened  women  of  Degas 
so  horrible  %  Because  they  are  not  cloistered  nuns  or  saints 
of  the  calendar?  No;  but  because  they  are  not  like  the 
children  and  the  women  in  the  pictures  of  the  two  painters 
just  named,  who,  in  the  practice  of  their  art,  though  not  in 
their  choice  of  subject,  were  influenced  and  helped  by 
Degas. 

Among  the  most  interesting  of  the  later  Impressionists  is 
Maxune  Maufra,  who  has  combined  with  art,  conceived  in 
the  letter  as  well  as  in  the  spirit  of  that  of  Monet,  some- 
thing of  the  older  methods  of  design.  He  has  given  to  the 
full  the  illusion  of  atmosphere  that  makes  us  forget  the 
canvas,  while  so  designing  his  picture  as  not  to  disappoint 
even  those  who  look  for  the  arrangements  of  form  and 
colour  which  give  pleasure  when  we  are  not  able  to  forget 
canvas  and  frame.  Thus,  in  an  introduction  to  a  catalogue 
of  a  recent  exhibition  of  his  works,  M.  Are^ne  Alexandre 
says  of  him  :  "  Distinguished  from  the  Impressionist  group 
properly  so  called  by  regard  for  composition  and  by  pictorial 
instinct,  this  fine  painter,  profoundly  enamoured  of  nature, 
has  remained  faithful  to  the  pursuit  of  light,  of  truth,  and 
of  intensity,  which  Impressionism  has  henceforth  imposed 
upon  all  who  paint  outside  as  well  the  decorative  as  the 
academic  formula."  A  landscape  by  Maufra  is  not  open  to 
the  charge,  often  made  against  Impressionist  works,  of  being 
a  mere  fragment  of  reality ;  it  is  as  if  nature  had  been  sur- 
prised in  the  act  of  picture-making.  No  one  unacquainted 
with  his  method  would  suspect,  on  seeing  his  pictures  from 
the  calculated  distance,  that  there  is  not  in  them  even  an 
approximation  to  detail,  that  form  is  so  summarily  rendered 


2o8  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

as  actually  to  be  not  merely  generalised,  but  quite  inaccu- 
rate when  closely  examined.  Yet,  when  seen  as  intended, 
the  pictures  have  both  truth  and  beauty,  and  this  in  no 
small  measure.  To  quote  further  what  M.  Alexandre  says 
of  Maufra  :  "He  has  been  able,  by  his  magnificent  determin- 
ation, to  astonish  our  sight  with  scenes  true,  joyous,  and 
enchanting,  in  which  the  pictorial  matter  is  richer  than 
ever,  but  is  never  indiscreet.  He  is  equally  removed  from 
wearisomely  careful  manipulation  and  from  that  intolerable 
calculated  clumsiness  which  conceit,  or  ignorance,  or  simply 
dry  theory,  seeks  to  establish  as  individuality."  Clearly 
M.  Alexandre  is  not  blind  to  the  vagaries  of  Impressionism. 

Maufra  was  born  at  Nantes  in  1861.  His  father  was 
engaged  in  business,  and  sent  his  son  to  Liverpool  to  learn 
English  and  to  act  in  the  interests  of  his  father's  firm.  He 
both  attended  to  business  and  sketched  in  and  near  Liver- 
pool, and  having  by  speculation  acquired  a  small  capital,  he 
betook  himself  to  art.  Mr.  Wynford  Dewhurst,  in  his 
book.  Impressionist  Painting,  quotes  Maufra  as  declaring 
to  him  his  indebtedness  to  Turner  and  Constable,  whom  he 
studied  while  in  England,  and  as  saying  that  Monet  and 
Pissarro  were  under  a  similar  indebtedness  to  the  same 
painters  as  had  been  Delacroix  and  Manet  before  them. 

Henri  le  Sidaner,  born  on  the  confines  of  Normandy  and 
Brittany  in  1862,  studied  art  first  at  the  J^cole  des  Beaux 
Arts  at  Dunkirk,  and  then  at  the  ^cole  des  Beaux  Arts  in 
Paris,  under  Cabanel.  He  was  much  attracted  by  the  work 
of  Manet,  and  came  somewhat  later  under  the  influence  of 
other  painters  who  were  engaged  with  the  problems  of  light 
and  atmosphere,  to  which  he  also  has  addressed  himself, 
solving  them  in  the  Impressionist  manner  and  creating 
works  of  wonderfully  subtle  beauty.     Two  of  his  pictures, 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  20^ 

La  Table  and  Le  Dessert^  are  in  the  Luxembourg.  The 
former  is  a  night-scene  in  the  open  air.  The  cold  light  of 
the  moon  gleams  on  buildings  in  the  background.  In  the 
foreground,  under  a  tree,  is  a  table,  at  which  there  has  been 
an  alfresco  meal.  The  dessert  is  on  the  table,  and  a  lamp  is 
burning  there,  but  the  diners  have  gone  away,  and  we  who 
look  at  the  scene  are  alone  with  the  grey  moonlight  and  the 
golden  light  of  the  lamp.  These  are  the  real  subjects  of 
the  picture;  and,  as  with  Monet's  poplars,  haystacks,  and 
cathedral  fronts,  the  objects  here — buildings,  table,  chairs, 
and  the  dessert  on  the  table — delightfully  grouped  though 
they  be,  do  but  give  occasion  for  the  varied  play  of  light, 
which  is  so  much  exquisite  visible  music,  in  tones  of  deli- 
cate grey,  gold,  green,  and  brown.  Le  Dessert  is  an  interior, 
where  again  a  table  is  laid,  but  no  one  is  present.  The 
symphony  of  light  is  played  in  the  same  colours,  only  here 
the  contrasts  are  stronger.  Series  of  pictures  of  such  cities 
as  Bruges  and  Venice  have  had  motives  of  light  and  colour 
similar  to  those  of  the  Luxembourg  pictures,  and  he  has 
treated  figure-subjects  in  the  same  manner.  Burne-Jones's 
complaint  against  the  Impressionists  was  that  they  got 
atmosphere,  but  nothing  else;  they  did  not  get  beauty. 
AVhether  or  not  it  was  because  he  was  preoccupied  with  one 
kind  of  beauty  alone  that  he  said  this  of  the  first  Impres- 
sionists, it  certainly  is  the  very  reverse  of  true  of  such 
artists  as  Maufra  and  Le  Sidaner. 

Auguste  Emanuel  Pointelin,  older  than  the  two  painters 
last  mentioned,  and  Didier-Pouget,  have  loved  and  in- 
terpreted the  subtle  moods  and  beautiful  effects  of  nature 
which  are  the  gift  of  the  light  and  the  air  in  their  many 
changes.  Pointelin  is  akin  to  Corot ;  Didier-Pouget  delights 
to  go  out  among  the  hills,  when  the  haze  spreads  a  delicate, 
p 


2IO  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

transparent  veil  over  the  laud,  softening  every  outline,  and 

(saturating  the  air  above  with  beautifully  tinted  light. 
D'Espagnat,  Toulouse-Lautrec,  Gauguin,  Guillaumin,  and 
Van  Gogh,  a  Dutchman  who  has  made  France  his  home, 
are  others  who  have  used  Impressionist  methods.  Vuillard 
and  others  have  evolved  a  form  of  decorative  pictorial  art, 
applied  chiefly  to  interiors,  which  has  much  the  effect  of 
tapestry,  dry  colour  being  used  and  effects  of  light  being 
subordinated  to  decorative  arrangement  and  colour. 
An  extreme  scientific  theory  and  practice  of  Impressionism, 
known  as  pointillisme^  carrying  much  further  than  Monet 
has  done  the  laying  on  the  canvas  of  dots  of  pure  pigments 
calculated  to  produce  from  a  given  distance  the  same  effect, 
only  with  greater  brilliance,  as  would  have  been  produced 
l^ad  the  pigments  first  been  mixed  on  the  palette  and  then 
transferred  to  the  canvas,  was  worked  out  by  Seurat,  and 
adopted  by  Signac,  Anquetin,  Van  Rysselberghe,  and  othei"S. 
Camille  Pissarro  tried  it  for  a  time,  and  then  abandoned  it 
again.  Experiment  has  succeeded  experiment,  and  will 
continue  to  do  so.  Here  we  must  not  carry  the  story  of 
Impressionism  further  than  the  point  at  which,  as  is  being 
more  and  more  generally  admitted,  it  has  made  a  most 
valuable  contribution  to  the  resources  of  art  for  the  in- 
terpretation of  nature  and  life. 

We  leave  now  the  painters  who  have  taken  modern  life, 
and  the  world  as  modern  eyes  see  it,  for  their  subject. 
They  are  not  by  any  means  all  of  them  Impressionists; 
though  many  of  them  who  are  not  followers  of  Monet  have 
none  the  less  been  not  a  little  influenced  by  the  Impresston- 
ist  point  of  view.  All  these  painters,  whatever  may  have 
been  their  failings,  have  helped  to  bring  art  into  closer 
touch   with  nature  and  life,   which   they   have  seen  and 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  21 1 

interpreted  for  themselves,  and  not  merely  through  the  eyes 
of  their  predecessors. 

Yet  the  older  formulae  of  art,  with  the  modifications  that 
time  inevitably  brings,  even  to  the  most  conservative 
quarters,  have  still  been  applied.  If  at  the  Salon  of  the 
Societe  Nationale  ties  Beaux  Arts  the  modern  methods  are 
so  largely  in  evidence  as  to  give  to  its  exhibitions  a  dis- 
tinctive character,  at  the  old  Salon  there  is  a  patchwork 
of  old  and  new.  At  the  Luxembourg,  the  galleries  of  which 
are  wholly  inadequate  for  their  purpose,  old  and  new 
methods  jostle  each  other,  except  where  the  peace  of  com- 
mon consent  reigns  in  the  Caillebotte  room,  and  in  the 
neighbouring  room  where  are  examples  of  the  art  of  other 
countries  that  has  been  largely  based  on  French  Impression- 
ism. The  older  formulae  have  lived  on  because  there  are 
certain  classes  of  subject  which  are  not  so  readily  treated 
according  to  plein  air  and  kindred  methods,  as  landscape 
and  modern  life  and  portraiture.  They  have  also  lived  on 
upon  their  merits.  After  all,  as  has  been  said  before,  im- 
pression of  reality  is  not  everything,  and  there  are  beauties 
besides  those  of  light,  tone,  and  value.  •  The  end  of  art  is 
not  yet.  Impressionism  has  seized  upon  and  opened  our 
eyes  to  truth  and  beauty  hitherto  unseen;  but  it  is  not 
therefore  entitled  to  close  our  eyes  to  all  other  truth 
beauty. 

We  might,  after  follo^ving  the  course  of  French  painting 
down  to  Ingres  and  Delacroix,  have  considered  first  the 
work  of  those  who,  during  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  kept  nearest  to  either  the  classical  or  the  romantic 
principle.  The  alternative  was  to  push  on  at  once  with  the 
pioneers  and  then  halt,  and  from  the  vantage  gained  take 
account  of  those  who  were  slowly  pursuing  the  beaten  track. 


212  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  latter  is  the  course  that  has  been  taken  here,  and  we 
have  now  briefly  to  consider  the  work  of  those  who  have 
done  little  more  than  establish  the  victories  already  gained 
by  art,  leaving  others  to  win  for  it  new  territories  from 
nature  and  life. 

In  landscape  painting  the  work  of  the  Barbizon  group 
lasted  over  into  our  period,  and  its  methods  have  been 
adopted,  with  differences  of  course,  by  a  succession  of 
painters.  The  elder  Daubigny,  Chintreuil,  and  Desbrosses 
were  among  the  older  members  of  the  group  who  have  not 
yet  been  mentioned.  Rosa  Bonhcur,  younger  by  ten  years 
than  Troyon,  and  outliving  him  by  over  thirty  years — she 
died  just  before  the  century's  close — carried  on  with  true 
sympathy  his  work  of  representing  animals  in  landscape. 
Many  others  have  followed  who  have,  in  the  main,  painted 

(landscape  and  animals  in  the  same  manner — that  is  to  say,  > 
they  have  not,  like  the  Impressionists,  put  vibrating  light  j 
gind  colour  in  the  first  place — or,  even,  almost  alone — buf 
they  have   been   interested  in  the  character  of  hills  and 
streams  and  trees  and  the  living  creatures  amid  them  r  they 
have  not  overlooked  elements  of  power  and  beauty  in  nature 
which  the  Impressionists,  intent  upon  one  gain  for  art,  have 
been  apt  to  miss;  and  even  with  regard  to  the  changing 
moods  and  effects  of  nature,  the  gift,  as  I  have  already  put  i 
it,  of  the  light  and  the  air,  these  painters — or  some  of  them  I 
at  least — have  not  only  not  left  them  unexplored,  but  have 
given  in  some  ways  a  fuller  and  deeper  interpretation  of 
them   than   the   Impressionists   have  yet  done;   and  only 
/where  that  which  the  Impressionists  have  gained  for  us  can 
/    be  combined  with  what  the  older  schools  have  retained  for 
Y  us  shall  we  desire  all  our  painters  to  break  away  from  the 
imitations  of  those  older  schools. 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  213 

One  type  of  picture  tliat  has  had  much  vogue  in  France, 
tlie  military  picture,  need  not  detain  us  long.  It  is 
referred  to  liere  mainly  on  account  of  the  work  of  one 
painter,  Ernest  Meissonier.  Speaking  in  general  terms,  it 
may  be  said  merely  that  this  kind  of  picture  has  become 
more  realistic  in  treatment.  It  had  its  classical  period, 
when  the  modern  soldier  was  approximated  as  closely  as 
possible  to  the  Greek  or  Roman  soldier;  then  it  passed 
through  a  romantic-heroic  stage  under  Horace  Vemet,  Gros, 
Raffet,  and  others;  under  such  painters  as  Alphonse  de 
Neuville,  Edouard  DMaille,  and  Aimo  Morot  it  has  ap- 
proached such  realism  as  perfected  photography  in  colour 
might  give,  with  the  one  advantage  over  the  most  perfect  of 
possible  cameras  :  the  painter's  freedom  to  compose. 

Meissonier,  born  in  1815,  belonged  to  the  generation 
before  that  of  the  first  Impressionists,  though,  livmg  until 
1891,  his  life  outlasted  that  of  Manet  and  others  of  the 
group.  Meissonier  painted  pictures  of  even  considerable 
size  almost  with  the  minuteness  of  miniature;  and  no 
change  in  the  tendency  of  art  around  him  availed  to 
broaden  his  style.  The  laboriously  painted  detail  of  his 
pictures  was  too  much  even  for  Mr.  Holman  Hunt,  who 
contrasts  the  small  remuneration  that  Madox  Brown  obtained 
for  his  work  in  the  Manchester  Town  Hall  with  "the 
extravagant  glorification  which  greeted  Meissonier's  micro- 
scopic representation  of  two  dull  old  gentlemen  playing 
chess,  or  the  picture  representing  nothing  more  ennobling 
than  a  sign-painter  painting  his  board,  or  again,  a  draughts- 
man sketching  in  a  barrack  yard  with  a  crowd  of  dull 
onlookers,  or,  as  the  highest  flight  of  military  interest, 
Napoleon  on  his  white  horse."  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  was 
angry  that  such  pictures  as  these  were  bought  by  English 


214  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

people  at  high  prices,  to  the  neglect  of  what  he  considered 
more  meritorious  English  work;  and  perhaps  this  makes 
him  something  less  than  just  to  Meissonier,  whom,  let  us 
remember,  Ruskin  praised;  indeed,  he  was  one  of  the 
purchasers  of  Meissonier's  work.  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  also 
contrasts  the  mechanical  painting  of  a  brick  wall  by 
Meissonier,  with  the  much  more  subtle  and  really  beauti- 
ful treatment  of  such  material  by  Millais;  and  in  this  he 
is  certainly  right.  In  fact,  there  is  in  Meissonier's  work 
much  of  that  neglect  of  texture  to  which  Mr.  Holman  Hunt 
himself  was  given  from  the  time  of  his  first  visit  to  the 
Holy  Land. 

That  there  was  nothing  particularly  ennobling  in  Meis- 
sonier's pictures  is  no  good  reason  for  condemning  him  as 
an  artist ;  and  it  is  not  wrong  to  pay  well  for  a  well-painted 
picture  without  asking  whether  the  possession  and  enjoy- 
ment of  it  will  accomplish  for  us  the  same  kind  of  good 
we  expect  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  or  the  Ten 
Commandments.  It  is  the  mechanical  precision  and  the 
metallic  hardness  of  his  works  that  forbid  us  to  admire  in 
them  much  beyond  their  mere  skill  and  laboriousness  which 
have  been  indulged,  one  might  almost  put  it,  at  too  great  a 
cost.  Manet's  comment  on  Meissonier's  Cuirassiers  was  that 
everything  Avas  steel  except  the  cuirasses  ! 

Pope,  in  the  "  Essay  on  Man,"  puts  the  questions : 

Why  has  not  Man  a  microscopic  eye  ? 
For  this  plain  reason,  Man  is  not  a  Fly. 
Say  what  the  use,  were  finer  optics  giv'n, 
T'  inspect  a  mite,  not  comprehend  the  heav'n  ? 

For  the  purposes  of  art  we  may  vary  the  second  question, 
and  ask  what  is  the  use  of  inspecting  the  parts  if  we  fail  to 
comprehend  the  whole.     It  is  interesting  to  recollect  that 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  215 

Madox  Brown  applied  the  adjective  "microscopic"  to  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt's  work,  just  as  the  latter  applied  it  to  that  of 
Meissonier.  The  French  painter  can  be  credited  with  more 
satisfactory  composition  than  the  English  one;  but  the 
complaint  holds  good  against  his  work  that  he  has  sacrificed 
the  whole  to  laborious  insistence  on  even  the  smallest  parts ; 
and  this  he  continued  to  do  while,  around  him,  breadth  of 
treatment  was  growing  apace  in  acceptance. 

The  example  of  Delacroix,  and  of  those  who,  after  him, 
took  art  further  along  the  road  upon  which  he  had  set  out 
with  it,  did  not  prevent  others,  such  as  Charles  Gleyre,  from 
still  walking  in  the  way  of  Classicism.  The  classical  style 
was  almost  inevitably  modified ;  but  it  was  only  modified, 
not  abandoned,  by  a  succession  of  painters. 

Alexandre  Cabanel,  born  in  1823,  and  William  Adolphe 
Bouguereau,  born  in  1825,  carry  over  into  the  second  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  that  which  we  might  regard  as  more 
properly  belonging  to  the  preceding  fifty  years.  So  do 
Charles  Henner  and  Jules  Lef^bvre,  who  came  a  few  years 
later,  though  Henner  advanced  in  the  painting  of  flesh 
softened  by  the  atmosphere  and  the  play  of  light.  We  have 
seen  that  he  was  one  of  the  artists  to  whom  so  modern  a 
painter  as  Eugene  Carri^re  expressed  his  indebtedness. 
Paul  Baudry,  who  belonged  to  the  same  generation,  also 
painted  in  a  modified  classical  style,  but  infused  more  life 
into  it  than  the  painters  who  have  just  been  mentioned. 
Henner,  Lef^bvre,  and  Baudry  were  just  about  the  same 
age  as  Manet,  and  all  of  them  survived  him ;  yet  he  became 
a  modem  of  the  moderns  while  they  only  to  a  minor  extent 
broke  with  the  past.  Baudry  won  the  Prix  de  Home,  and 
spent  five  years  in  Italy,  chiefly  at  the  Villa  Medici.  He 
copied  Michael  Angelo,  Titian,  Correggio,  and  others,  and 


2i6  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

his  art  was  founded  on  that  of  the  Italians  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  Decorative  painting  on  the  great  scale  vras  that 
which  he  desired,  and  his  wish  was  gratified  by  his 
receiving  the  commission  for  the  paintings  in  the  Opera 
House  at  Paris.  Both  in  this  work  and  in  his  easel  pic- 
tures, mythology  and  allegory  based  on  the  old  myths  are 
put  to  great  use.  The  nude  is,  of  course,  paramount;  and 
Baudry  gave  it  a  distinct  modern  Parisian  note.  His 
nymphs  are  elegant,  highly  artificial  Parisian  women.  His 
Truth,  seated  at  the  edge  of  a  well,  is  a  coquette.  It  is  as 
if  one  who  went  to  Greek  art  for  inspiration  should  be 
unmoved  by  the  idealism  of  Pheidias,  and  by  all  that  was 
nearest  to  it  in  the  later  sculpture — the  Venus  of  Milo,  for 
example — and  should  seize  upon  all  that  was  most  seduc- 
tively sensuous  in  the  art  of  an  age  so  conditioned  as  to  lead 
realism  along  doubtful  paths.  The  art  of  the  later  Renais- 
sance was  to  the  earlier  art  what  Greek  art,  after  the  close 
of  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  was  to  that  of  Pheidias ;  and  Baudry 
did  but  interpret  in  Parisian  fashion  the  lighter,  it  might  be 
said  the  baser,  side  of  the  art  of  the  Renaissance.  Along 
with  Baudry  should  be  named  Elie  Delaunay,  who  aided 
him  in  the  work  at  the  Opera  House.  Delaunay  was  a 
child  of  the  Renaissance,  but  he,  like  Madox  Brov/n  and 
the  Pre-Raphaelites,  found  guidance  rather  in  its  earlier 
stages;  and  his  art,  if  less  brilliant  than  that  of  Baudry, 
appeals  to  higher  emotions. 

Hippolyte  Flandrin  was  a  pupil  of  Ingres  who  won  the 
Frix  de  Rome,  studied  in  Italy,  placed  draughtsmanship 
before  colour,  and  became  a  painter  of  religious  subjects,  in 
his  treatment  of  which  he  was  little  more  than  an  echo  of 
the  earlier  Italian  masters,  Ary  Scheffer,  though  of  Dutch 
and  German  extraction,  was  so  much  influenced  in  his  art 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  217 

by  the  French  jminters  that  he  is  generally  accounted  as  one 
of  them.  lie  was  a  Classicist  in  that  his  draughtsmanship 
was  superior  to  his  colour.  He  was  more  akin  to  the 
Romantic  school  in  his  choice  of  pathetic  or  melancholy 
subjects  such  as  the  Marguerite  of  "  Faust "  and  Paolo  and 
Francesca  da  Rimini. 

In  such  ways  as  these  did  the  classical  influence  persist 
during  the  second  half  of  the  century. 

Here,  perhaps,  is  the  best  place  to  speak  of  two  painters 
whose  names  stand  high  on  the  roll  of  modern  artists — 
Gustave  Moreau  and  Puvis  de  Chavannes.  They  did  not 
merely  carry  on  the  work  of  either  the  Classical  or  the 
Romantic  school.  They  defy  any  exact  classification. 
Moreau  is  allied  to  the  Romanticists,  Chavannes  to  the 
Classicists;  but  in  the  case  of  each  of  them  a  new  spirit 
seems  to  have  come  and  to  have  moulded  the  form  of  his 
art  into  something  that  also  is  new.  Before  their  works  we 
find  ourselves  thinking,  not  so  much  how  they  have  pic- 
tured external  things,  as  how  they  have  used  such  things  as 
symbols  with  which  to  give  utterance  to  their  own  thought 
and  emotion.  With  therii,  as  with  the  Impressionists,  the 
subjective  element  strongly  asserts  itself.  We  may  say  that 
they  set  problem-pictures  before  us,  which  also  Watts, 
Rossetti,  and  Burne-Jones  and  men  of  lesser  name  have 
done  in  our  own  country. 

In  a  house  in  the  Rue  Rochefoucauld  in  Paris  there  is  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  collections  of  pictures,  drawings, 
and  studies  to  be  seen  anywhere.  The  word  "collection"  is 
not  the  right  one ;  these  works  have  not  been  brought  to- 
gether, they  are  in  the  place  where  they  were  produced; 
they  are  the  greater  part  of  the  life-work  of  Moreau,  who, 
born  in  1826,  lived  in  this  house,  which  came  to  him  from 


2i8  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

his  father,  until  his  death  in  1898.  He  was  under  no 
necessity  to  sell  his  pictures ;  he  disliked  exhibitions.  For 
the  most  part  he  kept  his  work  around  him,  working  first  at 
one  canvas  and  then  at  another,  as  the  subject  inspired  him  ; 
and  now  the  house  is  maintained  as  a  museum,  and  paint- 
ings in  all  stages  of  progress  are  arranged  in  the  two  studios, 
one  above  the  other,  in  which  the  painter  used  to  work.  It 
should  also  be  mentioned  that  several  of  his  pictures  are  in 
the  Luxembourg. 

His  master  in  art,  Theodore  Chass^riau,  had  taught  him 
to  admire  the  earlier  Italian  masters ;  and  before  this  he  had 
copied  the  mural  paintings  at  Pompeii.  He  was  attracted  by 
the  richly  decorative  art  of  India,  and  he  delighted  in 
beautiful  art- work  of  all  kinds.  Though  his  home  was  in 
the  heart  of  Paris,  he  lived  apart  from  the  life  of  his  own 
day.  Released  from  the  necessity  of  earning  a  livelihood, 
he  could  choose,  we  may  say,  in  what  age  or  ages  he  would 
live.  We  have  said  of  Rossetti  that  he  existed  in  the  pre- 
sent but  lived  in  the  past,  and  this  was  true  also  of  Moreau. 
He  fed  his  emotions  and  his  imagination  on  the  myths  and 
legends  of  the  days  long  gone  by,  and  then  he  set  them  forth 
in  pictures  that  have  no  close  parallel  in  the  work  of  any 
other  single  painter.  He  has  often  been  compared  to  Burne- 
Jones,  but  we  must  at  least  add  Rossetti  to  eke  out  the  com- 
parison. We  do  not  feel  satisfied  even  then.  We  need 
something  also  that  is  akin  to  the  spirit  of  William  Blake, 
an  intense  imaginative  realisation  of  life  other  than  that 
which  is  revealed  by  the  senses.  We  may  liken  him  to  a 
composite  portrait  of  these  three  artists. 

The  world  he  has  conjured  up  is  not  an  actual  one,  yet 
he  has  so  realised  it  that  it  becomes  credible,  almost  even 
inevitable,     It  has  burning  suns  and  glittering  stars,  it  has 


'LA  CHIMKRE 


GUSTAVE   MOREAU 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  2iq 

gloomy  forests  and  brilliantly  hued  flowers.  The  animals 
tliat  inhabit  it  are  such  as  -we  read  of  in  ancient  lore,  and 
the  people  in  it  are  human,  yet  strangely  different  from 
tlie  humanity  we  know,  and  dwell  in  halls  of  fabulous 
magnificence.  It  is  as  if  the  painter  had  distilled  beauti- 
fully shaped  and  coloured  essences  of  familiar  things.  To 
say  that  he  believed  in  this  world  of  his  imagination  would 
be  inadequate.  He  lived  in  it — lived  in  the  world  within 
the  world.  This  was  what  he  saw.  If  the  inner  world 
were  not  like  this,  it  was  because  his  vision  was  too  dim  to 
see  the  beauty  of  it  in  its  full  intensity. 

In  this  imagined  world  are  gods,  goddesses,  and  heroes 
— Jupiter,  Apollo,  Hercules,  Orpheus,  Odysseus,  Penelope, 
Europa,  Leda,  Galatea,  and  many  another.  Here  also  are 
Moses  and  David,  Buddha  and  Christ.  There  is  nothing 
here  of  the  dry  literalism  that  buries  the  spirit  of  the  past 
under  the  letter  of  it.  Yet  how  unfamiliar  is  the  spirit 
that  pervades  these  strange  imaginings  !  How  the  old-time 
stories  and  beliefs  must  have  worked  upon  the  brain  and 
the  emotions  of  the  painter  before  he  could  thus  re-tell 
them.  The  sumptuous  aesthetic  setting  of  them  can  hardly 
fail  to  be  repellent  if  we  come  to  them  wholly  unprepared. 
It  is  as  if  the  myths  and  legends  of  the  West,  and  those  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  had  been  translated  into  the 
language  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  They  are,  in  fact,  re- 
told here  by  a  recluse,  to  whom  they  bring  no  call  to  action, 
but  only  delight  and  wonder  at  them,  and  for  whom,  nur- 
tured as  he  was  in  art  of  exotic  splendour,  they  inevitably 
clothe  themselves  in  form  and  colour  too  rich  and  glowing, 
too  fantastic,  we  may  say,  to  have  any  correspondence 
with  the  way  in  which  all  but  a  very  few  of  us  can  ever 
have  imagined  these  things  for  themselves. 


220  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Comparison  has  often  been  made  between  the  art  of 
Moreau  and  the  poetry  of  Baudelaire ;  and  "vve  are  familiar 
with  the  use  of  the  word  "  decadence  "  in  reference  to  both 
of  them.  It  is  often  used  also  of  Rossetti,  Burne-Jones,  and 
their  followers.  Are  all  these  men  morbid ;  and,  if  so,  are 
they  more  morbid  than  those  whose  activities  have  made  the 
world  hideous  in  the  course  of  what  one  of  the  leading 
men  in  commercial  Lancashire  has  recently  called  the  soul- 
strangling  pursuit  of  wealth  ?  Do  the  mad  who  boast  them- 
selves sane  drive  the  sane  ones  mad?  However  this  may 
be,  Moreau  created  a  world  of  strange,  disquieting  beauty, 
one  into  the  full  significance  of  which  it  were  too  long  and 
difficult  to  enter  here. 

Xo  such  trouble  and  perplexity  as  we  may  well  feel 
before  his  works  are  caused  when  we  turn  to  those  of 
Puvis  de  Chavannes ;  rather  Avould  they  give  rest  and 
confidence  to  a  perturbed  spirit.  Like  Moreau,  he  turns 
away  from  the  world  we  know  because  he  has  a  vision  of 
another  one.  Unlike  Moreau,  he  does  not  see  a  world  that 
is  passionately  agitated,  groaning  and  travailing  in  pain,  but 
one  in  which  an  infinite  calm  abides.  We  may  liken  the 
one  to  the  surface  of  the  ocean,  now  ruffled  by  the  breeze, 
now  lashed  by  the  storm,  and  rarely  wholly  still ;  and  the 
other  to  the  ever  untroubled  depths  below.  The  difiference 
between  the  worlds  imagined  by  the  two  men  is  due,  of 
course,  to  the  difference  of  their  temperaments.  We  need 
both  visions;  we  need  to  feel  that  the  heart-beat  of  the 
universe,  in  alternate  systole  and  diastole,  will  give  us  both 
work  and  rest;  if  we  be  assured  of  which,  the  paradox 
becomes  true  that  work  and  rest  are  one. 

The  deep  quietude  that  abides  in  the  pictures  of  Chavannes 
caused  it  to  be  said  of  him  in  his  early  days — he  was  born 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  221 

at  Lyons  in  1826  and  was  a  pupil  of  Couture — that  he  was 
infatuated  with  tranquillity.  There  is  certainly  an  ascetic 
vein  in  both  the  spirit  and  the  manner  of  his  work.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  he  has  been  said  to  be  nervously  de- 
generate, not  whole  and  strong  enough  to  face  life  as  it 
really  is.  I  recollect,  years  ago,  looking  at  his  great  picture 
in  the  Sorbonne,  and  feeling  that  the  sacred  grove,  with  the 
listless  figures  motionless  or  slowly  moving  in  it,  was  not 
the  most  convincing  symbol  not  only  of  the  pursuit,  but 
of  the  attainment  of  knowledge  which,  for  us,  at  least  only 
means  the  need  for  further  pursuit.  Yet,  perhaps,  were  it 
not  for  the  conviction  that  beneath  the  unrest  of  knowledge 
which  so  often  seems  but  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  ignorance 
there  is  perfect  knowledge,  a  veritable,  tranquil  sacred 
grove,  that,  in  brief,  the  universe  is  rational,  we  should  not 
have  the  heart  to  live.  At  least,  surely,  reason  must  go  if 
it  could  not  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  it  was  faced 
by  only  colossal  unreason.  The  weary  student  may  well  be 
soothed  and  strengthened  by  a  vision  of  the  calm  on  which 
his  troubled  quest  of  knowledge  is  securely  based. 

Chavannes  became  a  decorative  artist  on  the  large  scale. 
Perhaps  no  other  painter  of  modern  times  has  had  such  fine 
opportunities,  and  has  made  such  splendid  use  of  them. 
How  our  own  "Watts  and  Burne- Jones  would  have  rejoiced 
to  have  his  chances !  In  some  ways,  imdoubtedly,  they 
could  not  have  used  them  so  well.  There  has  been  a  long 
tradition  in  France  of  painthig  on  the  large  scale.  In 
England  there  has  been  no  such  tradition.  It  is  not  possible 
to  think  of  such  a  fiasco  having  happened  in  France  as  the 
futile  attempt  of  Rossetti  and  his  companions  to  decorate 
with  mural  paintings  the  walls  of  the  Union  building  at 
Oxford,     When  Chavannes  appeared,  and  showed  marked 


222  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

ability  for  mural  painting,  it  was  certain  that,  being  a 
Frenchman,  such  work  would  be  found  for  him  to  do. 
Watts,  who  could  have  done  fine,  if  not  as  fine  things,  in 
the  same  kind,  was  reduced  to  asking  the  directors  of  the 
London  and  North-Western  Railway  Company  to  let  him 
decorate,  at  his  own  expense,  the  waiting-hall  at  Euston 
Station ;  and,  when  this  offer  was  refused,  he  had  to  content 
himself  with  but  little  more  than  the  fragmentary  record  of 
his  visions  by  means  of  easel-pictures.  It  was  quite  otherwise 
with  Chavannes.  He  was  commissioned  to  execute  mural 
paintings  for  the  museums  of  Amiens,  Lyons,  and  Marseilles, 
for  the  Pantheon,  the  Sorbonne,  and  the  Hotel  de  Ville  at 
Paris,  for  the  h6tels  de  ville  of  several  provincial  towns,  and, 
outside  his  own  country,  for  the  Library  at  Boston,  U.S.A. 
It  was  for  the  American  Church  in  Rome,  we  recollect,  that 
Bume- Jones  got  his  solitary  commission  for  j^ictorial  work 
on  a  large  scale. 

In  work  of  this  kind  Chavannes  bore  in  mind  that  his 
pictures  had  not  an  independent  existence,  that  they  were 
part  of  the  decoration  of  a  building.  He  aimed  at  no 
illusion  of  reality  which  would  induce  forgetfulness  of  the 
wall  behind  the  picture.  For  this  reason  he  avoided  realistic 
colour,  modelling,  and  light  and  shade,  thus  preserving  an 
only  slightly  varied  tone  throughout  the  picture.  Grey  was 
the  predominant  colour,  varied  with  sober  blues,  greens, 
reds,  etc.  Not  only  are  the  sentiment  and  action  of  his 
pictures  tranquil,  they  are  studiously  quiet  in  their  decorative 
effect  \  the  wall  has  been  covered  with  delicately  modulated 
colour,  which  takes  away  all  sense  of  bareness  without  the 
picture  seeming  to  clamour  for  attention  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  rest  of  the  building  of  which  it  is  but  an  accessory. 
This  can  by  no  means  be  said  of  all  the  mural  paintings 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  223 

which  those  of  Chavannes  have  for  companions.  To  take 
one  glaring  example :  the  paintings  of  Chavannes  in  the 
Pantheon  at  Paris  liave  for  their  subject  the  legend  of  Ste. 
Genevieve,  the  patron  saint  of  the  city.  They  are  quiet  in 
tone,  and  differ  in  this  respect  from  nearly  every  other  picture 
in  the  place.  But,  on  the  wall  beneath  the  eastern  apse, 
there  is  a  particularly  garish  painting  by  Edouard  D^taille, 
representing  a  wild  rush  of  horse-soldiers  "ve?'^  la  Gloire" 
Glory  being  personified  by  an  actress  astride  a  winged  horse. 
Above  this  picture  is  a  mosaic  by  Hebert,  representing 
Christ  revealing  to  the  guardian  angel  of  France  the  des- 
tinies of  the  country,  while  at  one  side  is  standing  Ste. 
Genevieve,  and  at  the  other  Joan  of  Arc.  D^taille's 
picture,  vulgar  alike  in  realistic  treatment  and  in  sentiment, 
is  a  painful  contrast,  not  only  from  the  mosaic  above  it,  but 
from  the  quiet  beauty  and  refined  feeling  of  the  pictures  of 
Chavannes;  yet,  presumably,  according  to  some  critics,  the 
latter  is  morbid  and  the  former  healthy  ! 

Whatever  he  paints,  be  it  a  dream  of  classical  antiquity, 
medigeval  painters  at  work  in  a  monastery,  allegories  of  the 
seasons  of  the  year,  of  war  and  peace,  of  the  Muses  and 
the  poets,  Prometheus  tortured  for  giving  fire  to  mankind, 
or  what  else  it  may  be,  he  seems  to  have  materialised  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  that  lives  in  all  history,  in  all  phenomena. 
The  quietude,  the  delicate  harmonies  of  tone  and  colour, 
seem  to  unite  the  spiritual  and  the  material ;  the  painter's 
thought  and  emotion,  his  vision  of  the  past,  his  longings  for 
the  future,  his  touch  of  the  world  within  the  world,  seem  to 
be — are,  we  may  say — disclosed  to  us,  not  in  the  way  of  in- 
formation only,  but  of  emotional  influence.  One  writer,  refer- 
ring to  a  series  of  allegorical  paintings  by  Chavannes,  says  : 
"  It  taps  on  my  school  satchel  " ;  and  he  imagines  a  Japanese, 


224  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

an  appreciator  of  the  gi'eat  works  of  the  artists  of  his  own 
country,  but  ignorant  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  won- 
dering what  the  figures  in  it  mean,  for  he  has  not  the  special 
key  to  their  meaning,  and  the  figures  have  not  the  natural 
constraining  power  of  plain  truth  and  beauty.  To  this  effect 
writes  Max  Nordau ;  but,  alas  !  exactly  the  same  thing  may 
be  said  about  many  Japanese  pictures ;  they  also  are  utterly 
incomprehensible  without  a  special  key,  and  have  not  plain 
truth  and  beauty.  We  need  not  go  through  the  schools  of 
art  and  tabulate  what  would  have  to  be  dismissed  to  the 
rubbish-heap  were  this  kind  of  criticism  applied  to  them 
all.  It  is  enough  to  note  merely  that  Chavannes  ^^ainted,  not 
for  the  Japanese,  but  for  people  with  AYestern  traditions 
and  knowledge. 

Applied  to  easel-pictures  Chavannes'  method  is  hardly 
adequate,  though  his  picture  The  Poor  Fitshei'man,  thrust 
into  rather  than  placed  in  a  miscellaneous  crowd  of  pictures 
in  the  Luxembourg,  is  not  finally  to  be  judged  amid  such 
incongruous  surroundings.  It  may  be  taken — to  refer  to 
the  subject  of  it — as  an  allegory  of  humanity,  with  difficulty 
winning  a  subsistence  by  land  or  by  sea,  yet  toiling  on  in 
patience  and  in  faith.  The  babe  is  asleep  on  the  grass ;  an 
older  child  gathers  flowers ;  the  fisherman  silently  prays  that 
he  may  get  that  which  will  feed  them  all.  Another  of  his 
pictures,  TJie  Beheading  of  John  the  Baptist,  shows  clearly 
that,  although  in  a  moment  the  headsman  will  have  severed 
the  Baptist's  head  from  his  body,  the  victory  lies  with  him, 
not  with  his  murderers.     The  Reapers  needs  no  comment. 

The  limitations  of  Chavannes'  technique  have  often  been 
urged  against  him.  He  was  not  a  great  master  of  the 
brush;  in  aiming  at  simplicity  he  became  rudimentary. 
This  is  what  has  been  said  of  him.     But  the  means  he  used 


1    ^ 

I^^H 

^^^^^^^^^^^^1 

Amm    m  '^ 

^^^^P^Sh 

■Hj^^   W   >    i 

S^^  "ii 

wtm 

1  ^ 

WTfc^^^^^J^fc  'I  ^ 

-"*             ^ 

_2l 

THE  REAPER 


PUVIS   DE  CHAVANNES 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  225 

were  well  adapted  to  the  end  he  had  in  view.  It  is  idle  to 
compare  him  with  Raphael  or  Rubens,  and  say  that  he  did 
not  paint  as  they  painted — and  this  has  been  done — unless 
it  be  to  point  out  that  without  having  the  technical  skill 
and  resource  possessed  by  these  painters  Chavannes  has  pro- 
duced works  wliich  are  of  great  beauty  within  their  limits, 
and  which,  also,  touch  the  strings  of  new  emotions  and 
evoke  strains  that  are  silent  when  we  are  before  the  works 
of  the  masters  with  whom,  in  point  of  technique,  he  may 
not  compare. 

The  art  of  Moreau  was  so  emphatically  the  expression  of 
an  exceptional  individuality  that  we  hardly  expect  to  see  it 
repeated  with  only  minor  variations.  That  of  Chavannes 
was  simpler  in  its  derivation,  and  departed  less  from  cus- 
tomary methods  and  ideas,  and  his  name  comes  to  our  lips 
when  we  see  the  work  of  other,  younger  painters.  His 
influence  is  plainly  seen  in  the  mural  paintings  executed  in 
the  Pantheon  and  elsewhere,  and  in  easel-pictures  and  por- 
traits, by  Ferdinand  Humbert ;  and  Henri  Martin,  in 
paintings  such  as  the  large  Serenite  in  the  Luxembourg,  also 
shows  himself  to  be  a  follower  of  Chavannes.  Each  of 
these  painters,  however,  comes  nearer  to  the  Impressionists 
by  rendering  atmospheric  vibration.  This  tendency  is 
noticeable  in  the  works  of  many  painters  whose  subjects 
are  of  the  Classical  and  the  Romantic  order.  It  may  be  an 
exaggeration  to  say,  as  did  an  enthusiast  for  the  Monet 
school  to  me  recently,  that  there  is  nothing  left  but  Impres- 
sionism; but  certainly,  as  it  has  been  said  that  in  the 
paintings  of  Masaccio  and  his  contemporaries  men  first 
began  to  move  about  in  a  world  prepared  for  them,  so  it 
can  be  said  that  gods  and  goddesses,  nymphs  and  heroes, 
now  begin  to  move  about  in  a  world  where  the  breathing  of 
Q 


226  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

which  their  human  form  suggests  the  necessity  seems  to  be 
possible.  This  is  a  characteristic  of  the  art  of  that  fine 
poet-painter  Eniile  Ren^  Menard,  who  has  been  called  "  the 
singer  of  the  clouds,  of  the  high  heaven,  of  the  tranquil 
sea,  and  of  the  silent  mountain  forests."  This  description 
alone  would  suggest  to  us  that  he  was  one  for  whom  beyond 
all  the  many  voices  of  nature  there  was  one  deep,  still  voice 
that  most  he  loved  to  hear.  That  voice  is  best  heard  in 
silence,  for  it  is  not  without,  but  within  us,  who  are  a  part 
of  nature — or  of  whom  nature  is  a  part,  for  nature  leaves 
us  unsatisfied.  It  is  nature  thus  writ  large  that  IMenard 
paints,  or  sings — the  word  fits  better.  His  pictures  are  like 
solemn  odes  or  chants.  The  spirit  that  informs  them  is  the 
one  that  informs  the  landscapes  of  Watts,  but  the  expres- 
sion in  those  of  Menard  is  more  subtle.  His  colour  is 
simplified  to  a  few  clear,  full,  harmonious  notes.  The  air, 
that  which  makes  possible  life  in  the  world,  and  creates  its 
beauty — we  are  on  old  ground  again — vibrates  in  every 
scene,  and  the  revealing  light  plays  everywhere,  at  its 
fullest,  or  minished  through  dimness  towards  dark.  Nature, 
in  these  pictured  psalms  seems  to  say  to  us,  "  Be  still,  and 
know  that  I  am  God."  The  cattle  are  there,  nature  raised 
to  higher  life  than  tree  and  flower.  Man,  higher  still,  is 
there.  Homer  tunes  his  lyre  by  the  edge  of  the  sea,  and 
shepherd  calls  to  shepherd  to  come  and  hear  his  song.  The 
gods  are  there,  they  commune  with  men ;  and  the  shepherd 
Paris  gives  the  apple  to  the  goddess  of  his  choice,  with  the 
dire  results  of  which  the  song  of  Homer  told.  The  old 
stories  cannot  die.  They  arose  out  of  life,  and  life  has  not 
changed  so  much  that  they  are  not  still  essentially  true  to  it. 
These  pictures,  therefore,  even  though  a  Japanese  would  not 
know  who  Paris  and  Aphrodite  were,  do  more  in  their  story- 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  227 

telling  than  merely  "  tap  on  the  school  satchel."  The  story 
and  the  landscape  are  completely  unified  by  art ;  each  not 
merely  docs  no  injury  to,  but  explains  and  exalts  the  other. 

In  such  pictures  as  these,  Realism,  and  some  measure,  at 
least,  of  Impressionism,  unite  with  a  lofty  Idealism.  We 
have  now  for  a  brief  while  to  observe  Romanticism  and 
Realism  occupied  with  their  own  familiar  tasks. 

The  right  to  paint  as  they  wished,  and  not  as  they  were 
bidden,  which  Delacroix  and  those  who  fought  with  him 
had  won  against  Ingres  and  his  fellow-classicists,  was  main- 
tained, with  but  little  advance  on  new  ground,  by  a  number 
of  painters,  some  of  whom  lived  until  near  the  close  of  the 
century.  Honord  Daumier,  who  was  bom  in  1808  and  died 
in  1879,  powerfully  aided  Delacroix  by  caricatures  which 
were  really  trenchant  criticisms  of  the  productions  of  the 
Classical  school.  It  has  already  been  said  that  he  and  the 
other  draughtsmen  of  his  time  did  much  by  their  work  in 
that  kind  to  enable  painting  also  to  get  into  touch  with 
contemporary  life.  He  was  painter  as  well  as  draughtsman, 
and,  as  is  shown  by  the  picture  here  reproduced,  he  broke 
away  from  the  academic  conventions,  basing  his  art  upon 
colour  and  a  broad  and  vigorous  treatment  of  his  subjects. 
This  was,  indeed,  what  the  Romanticists  achieved.  They 
made  good  the  painter's  right  to  emphasise  colour  rather 
than  drawing,  to  treat  his  subjects  according  to  his  o^vn 
conception  of  them  instead  of  according  to  externally  im- 
posed conventions,  and,  further,  to  choose  his  subjects 
where  he  would. 

Delaroche,  who  has  already  been  mentioned  as  taking 
several  subjects  from  English  history,  barely  lived  past  the 
half-century;  Decamps,  who  went  to  the  "gorgeous  East" 
for  his  subjects,  died  in  1860;  and  Marilhat,  who  painted 


228  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

largely  in  Egypt,  died,  though  younger  than  Decamps, 
before  our  period  begins.  These  men  sought  to  render  the 
brilliant,  burning  light  and  colour  of  the  East.  Fromentin, 
who,  born  in  1820  and  dying  in  1886,  lived  the  greater 
number  of  the  working  years  of  his  life  in  the  second  half 
of  the  century,  gave  a  romantic,  brilliantly  coloured,  but 
unconvincing  picture  of  Arab  life.  Gustave  Guillaumet, 
who  also  made  the  East  his  province,  was  born  in  1840  and 
died  in  1887.  He  belongs,  therefore,  as  to  his  work,  wholly 
to  our  time.  He  had  a  profounder  insight  into  the  differ- 
ence between  East  and  West  than  his  predecessors,  who 
only  idealised  its  brilliance  and  picturesqueness.  He  was 
impressed  by  the  intense,  vibrating  light  and  heat,  and  his 
pictures  seem  also  to  say  that  he  knew  how  deeply  they 
have  affected  Eastern  life  and  thought.  In  Eastern  lands 
the  European  feels  as  if  time  had  been  set  back.  At  home 
he  easily  goes  back  to  the  Middle  Ages ;  he  may  get  even 
so  far  as  imperial  Rome ;  in  the  East  he  is  back  among  the 
patriarchs.  When  some  fellaheen  of  modern  Egypt  saw 
the  wooden  effigy  of  a  headman,  old  by  how  many  thousand 
years  we  only  approximately  calculate,  brought  up  from  the 
tomb  in  the  sand,  they  cried  out  that  it  was  the  headman  of 
their  own  village  !  It  is  of  this  continuity  of  Eastern  life, 
which  the  West  with  difficulty  breaks,  that  Guillaumet's 
pictures  speak  to  us.  Of  this  we  think  when  we  see  the 
colour-washed  stone  or  mud  of  his  buildings,  and  the 
interiors  with  such  primitive  furnishing.  In  his  Evening 
Prayer  in  the  Sahara^  the  desert  is  darkening  as  the  light 
fades  in  the  unclouded  sky,  into  which  ascend  the  pillars 
of  smoke  from  the  encampment  fires.  The  irregularly 
conical  tents  seem  to  the  eye  to  rise  higher  than  the  distant 
range  of   hills,  and  so  give  us  the  measure  of    the  vast 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  229 

spaciousness  of  the  scene.  The  herdsman  keeps  watch  over 
the  sheep  and  cattle ;  by  the  well  stand  the  camels ;  in  the 
foreground  the  men  prostrate  themselves  in  prayer.  Hardly 
in  any  particular  was  life  different  from  this  in  patriarchal 
days.  Such  a  picture  can  hardly  be  described  as  either 
romantic  or  realistic.  It  escapes  into  the  ideal.  Our  terms, 
which  we  use  to  guide  us,  mislead  us  unless  we  are  wary. 
The  real  holds  the  most  truly  ideal.  If  we  wish  for  cor- 
roboration of  this,  let  us  think  of  Millet's  Angelus. 

Robert-Fleury,  Boulanger,  L^on  Cogniet,  and  G(5r6me 
were  among  the  painters  who  maintained  the  Romantic 
tradition  after  the  death  of  Delacroix,  while  making  it, 
as  Delaroche  had  already  done,  more  the  medium  for  his- 
torical illustration.  Monticelli  was  a  brilliant  colour-poet. 
The  delicately  graceful  portraiture  and  fantasies  of  Aman 
Jean  belong  to  the  latest  phase  of  Romanticism. 

Where  shall  we  place  Alphonse  Legros  ?  Born  at  Dijon 
in  1837,  he  settled  in  England  in  the  sixties,  and  became 
Professor  of  Etching  at  South  Kensington,  and  subsequently 
Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Art  at  University  College,  London. 
In  Fantin-Latour's  portrait  group,  entitled  Hommage  a 
Delacroix,  painted  in  1864,  and  now  in  the  Moreau  collec- 
tion at  the  Louvre,  Legros  takes  his  place  before  the  portrait 
of  the  leader  of  the  Romanticists,  along  with  Manet,  Whistler, 
Baudelaire,  Duranty,  and  others.  Thoughtfully,  almost  to 
sadness,  he  looks  out  at  the  spectator.  He  has  nothing  of 
the  eager  vivacity  of  Manet  and  Whistler;  and  in  his  art, 
be  the  subject  landscape,  the  life  of  the  poor,  or  some  sacred 
theme,  we  find  a  noble  austerity,  in  form  and  colour  and 
feeling,  and  hear  the  deep  undertones  of  life  and  nature. 

Courbet,  as  we  have  seen,  pushed  on  further  than  Dela- 
croix;   he  would   have  nothing   to   do  with   even   recent 


230  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

history ;  a  painter's  concern  was,  in  his  opinion,  only  with 
what  he  could  see.  His  Realism  paved  the  way  for  Im- 
pressionism. But  there  were  others  whom  we  must  call 
Realists  who  yet  were  not  as  uncompromising  as  Courbet. 
They  were  willing  to  take  their  subjects  from  history. 
J.  P.  Laurens,  who  chose  the  darker  side  of  ecclesiastical 
history,  the  strong  measures  of  repression  and  persecution 
taken  by  the  Church  to  maintain  its  authority,  as  material 
for  his  art,  belongs  to  this  category.  L^on  Bonnat,  best 
known  as  a  portrait  painter,  also  painted  pictures  taken 
from  history  and  legend  as  well  as  from  contemporary  life. 
Luminais,  Br^han,  and  others  ransacked  history  for  deeds 
of  violence  and  blood.  The  Moorish  Headsman  of  Henri 
Regnault  is  a  well-known  picture  in  the  Wallace  Collection, 
London.  His  Salome  is  a  mere  animal.  These  and  other 
pictures  of  his  have  a  brilliant  warmth  of  colour  going 
beyond  that  of  Delacroix.  Later  still  in  date — he  was  born  in 
1859 — Georges  Rochegrosse  has  treated  scenes  from  history 
in  the  same  realistic  manner.  Roybet  found  many  of  his 
subjects  in  recent  history,  and  took  the  Spanish  painters  for 
his  model  in  the  treatment  of  them.  Frangois  Bonvin,  who 
belonged  to  an  earlier  generation,  painted  domestic  scenes 
in  the  manner  of  the  Dutch  masters.  Ribot  painted  scenes 
from  common  life,  under  effects  of  light  thro^vn  out  against 
broad  backgrounds  of  dark  shade  and  shadow,  with  remark- 
able power  and  rendering  of  character.  Chaplin,  in  his 
pictures  of  the  semi-nude,  passed  beyond  the  sensuous  to 
the  sensual.  Antoine  Vollon  has  painted  interiors,  land- 
scapes, and  above  all,  still  life.  Charles  Cazin  mingled 
history  with  poetic  landscape. 

It  remains,  before  we  turn  from  painting  in  France  to 
painting  in  other  countries,  to  say  a  word  about  portraiture. 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  231 

Many  of  the  painters  already  discussed  have  been  portraitists, 
and  tliis  side  of  the  art  of  some  of  them  has  been  referred 
to,  though  in  the  main  we  have  been  occupied  with  land- 
scape and  subject  painting. 

Has  there  been  a  change  in  portraiture  akin  to  that  which 
we  have  been  tracing  in  the  treatment  of  landscape  and 
figure-subjects  1  The  answer  is  a  very  decided  affirmative. 
One  wonders  what  would  be  the  effect  upon  David  and 
Ingres  could  they  visit  the  exhibitions  at  the  Salons  to-day 
and  see  portraits  composed  of  dabs  of  pigment  which  some- 
times are  not  lost  sight  of  individually,  even  when  we  have 
got  back  to  the  opposite  wall  of  the  room,  and  which  cause 
M.  X.  or  Mme.  Y.  to  have  the  appearance  of  being  half- 
obscured  by  a  steady  downfall  of  confetti !  This  is  the 
extreme  of  change  that  has  taken  place  from  the  clear, 
decisive  draughtsmanship  of  the  Classical  school,  which 
makes  their  portraits  look  as  if  light  shone  upon  them,  but 
as  if  atmosphere  were  a  thing  unknown  in  the  world  in 
which  they  lived.  Such  are  the  extremes.  There  are  many 
intermediate  stages.  Quite  unintentionally,  through  their 
being  unfinished  at  his  death,  two  of  David's  portraits  now 
in  the  Louvre — the  Madame  Recamier  and  the  Madame 
Chalgrin — anticipate  Impressionism.  Some  of  the  prelimi- 
nary painting,  done  in  a  bold  stipple,  remains  visible,  and 
quite  gives  the  effect  of  atmospheric  vibration.  One  is  re- 
minded of  the  outdoor  studies  of  Constable  which,  as 
already  mentioned,  are  much  more  luminous  than  the  pic- 
tures which  he  afterwards  worked  up  from  them  in  the 
studio.  David,  however,  was  a  fine  portrait  painter,  a 
master  of  characterisation,  and  he  could  also  interpret 
feminine  charm  and  beauty.  It  is  significant  that  in  the 
work  of  Ingres  as  a  portrait  painter  his  drawings  rival,  or 


33a  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

rather  excel,  his  paintings.  He,  like  David,  was  a  true  and 
sympathetic  interpreter  of  character,  and  his  portraits  still 
hold  high  place  in  this  respect. 

No  attempt  can  be  made  here  even  to  mention  any  con- 
siderable number  of  the  portrait  painters  who  have  worked 
in  France  during  the  last  half-century.  We  are  concerned 
only  to  note  what  the  art  has  gained  during  the  period.  The 
gain  has  been  not  in  power  to  produce  a  likeness,  to  seize  an 
expression,  or  to  interpret  character.  All  this  was  done 
long  ago  perhaps  as  well  as  ever  it  will  be  done.  We  may 
find  that  the  portraits  by  Baudry  and  Delaunay  are  reminis- 
cent of  those  of  Ingres,  that,  away  from  the  classical 
influence,  Ricard  was  a  colourist,  that  Bonnat  was  a  virile 
painter  and  interpreter  of  character  who  has  left  a  valuable 
record  of  many  notable  men  of  his  time,  that  Gaillard  was 
a  literalist,  and  Dubois  more  subtle.  We  may  note  the  hard 
brilliance  of  Carolus  Duran,  and  the  verve  and  vivacity  of 
Boldini;  but  we  can  equally  establish  such  differences  be- 
tween contemporary  painters  in  other  periods.  Perhaps  I 
have  said  too  absolutely  that  portraiture,  in  certain  all-im- 
portant respects,  cannot  now  progress.  At  least,  as  character 
changes  from  age  to  age,  so  characterisation  changes ;  and  it 
changes  also  according  to  the  value  placed  at  different  times 
on  various  qualities — if  this  be  not  another  way  of  putting 
the  preceding  statement.  Anyhow,  into  these  questions  I  am 
not  prepared  to  enter.  I  cannot  undertake  to  show  how  the 
portraiture  of  each  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  reflects 
contemporary  life.  The  one  point  upon  which  I  wish  to 
dwell  for  a  moment  is  the  gain  to  portraiture  by  the  illusion 
of  life  obtained  by  means  of  the  illusion  of  atmosphere, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  has  brought  gain  also  to  landscape 
and  subject  painting. 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  233 

It  is  instructive  to  note  that  M.  Rodin  and  his  followers 
have  sought  to  obtain  this  advantage  for  sculpture  by  a  deli- 
berate lack  of  finish  and  softening  of  hard  edges  calculated 
to  make  the  figure  look  as  if  it  were  not  really  hard  and 
rigid,  but  mobile,  and  even  as  if  we  saw  it  through  a  slightly 
hazy  atmosphere. 

In  painting,  of  coarse,  we  may  go  back  to  such  masters  as 
Velasquez  and  Rembrandt  and  find  in  their  work  the  effect 
I  have  mentioned,  and  this  is  precisely  what  the  painters 
themselves  have  done.  To  take  only  one  instance  :  we  have 
seen  that  Manet  in  his  portrait  painting  was  influenced  by 
Velasquez  and  Frans  Hals.  And  has  not  the  deliberate  lack 
of  finish  in  sculpture  been  attributed  to  Michael  Angelo? 
Certain  of  the  portrait  painters  of  our  time,  however,  have 
carried  effect  of  atmosphere  further  than  it  had  been  carried 
before.  Eugene  Carriere,  we  recollect,  made  the  atmosphere  so 
visible  that  the  joke  of  the  smoky  chimney  was  made  against 
him.  Fantin-Latour,  to  whose  Hommage  a  Delacroix  reference 
has  been  made,  rendered  the  effect  of  atmosphere  with  great 
subtlety.  A  remarkable  example  of  this  is  the  double  por- 
trait of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edwards,  now  in  the  National  Gallery. 
I  have  known  a  lady  to  step  back  from  a  room  in  which 
there  was  a  portrait-group  by  Fantin-Latour  under  the 
momentary  impression  that  she  was  unexpectedly  face  to 
face  with  a  number  of  gentlemen.  If  the  portrait  be  com- 
monplace, the  illusion  of  life,  of  course,  will  give  it  no 
distinction.  If  apart  from  the  illusion  it  be  distinguished, 
then  it  gains  by  all  the  difference  there  is  between  mobility 
and  immobility,  between  expression  and  gesture  that  seem  to 
have  been  arrested  and  fixed  for  ever,  and  those  that  seem 
but  momentary  and  certain  soon  to  change. 

The  effect   is  obtained   by  no   one  method   only.     The 


234  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

picture  may  be  smoothly  painted,  all  contours  being  carefully 
modelled,  all  hard  edges  avoided,  all  values  accurately  ren- 
dered. Or  there  may  be  no  finish,  but  only  vigorous  lines 
and  simple  washes ;  figures  and  objects  may  be  defined  in 
part  by  hard  lines  that  do  not  exist  in  reality ;  there  may 
be  no  colour ;  yet,  as  in  a  black-and-white  reproduction  of  a 
drawing  by  Berthe  Morisot  that  lies  before  me,  the  light 
seems  so  to  flash  and  gleam,  to  soften  even  at  the  distance 
of  a  few  feet,  to  shine  so  dazzlingly  nearer  to,  and  so  to  die 
away  in  shade  and  shadow,  that  the  illusion  of  reality,  of 
life  amid  an  atmosphere  that  can  be  breathed,  is  extremely 
vivid.  This  advantage  the  portraiture  of  the  later  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century  possessed  over  that  of  its  earlier 
years. 

With  this  brief  note  on  one  conspicuous  feature  of  the 
development  of  portrait  painting  in  France  during  the  last 
fifty  years,  our  study  of  French  painting  during  that  period 
comes  to  an  end.  What  is  it  that  we  have  seen?  We 
have  seen  the  art,  in  the  immediately  preceding  period, 
struggling  to  free  itself  from  the  tyranny  of  tradition,  those 
who  engaged  in  the  struggle  being  subjected  to  contempt 
and  even  derision.  First  Romanticism  won  the  right  to 
ejQst,  then  Realism;  and  lastly,  freedom  was  gained  for 
the  painter  to  select  and  emphasise,  or  even  to  isolate,  any 
element  of  beauty  or  expression  in  nature  and  life  that 
especially  impressed  him.  Art  became  free,  for  those  who 
cared  for  the  freedom,  from  the  tyranny  alike  of  tradition 
and  of  nature.  Has  liberty  come,  in  some  instances,  to 
mean  license;  has  the  artist  become  a  law  unto  himself? 
It  often  seems  so  as  we  walk  round  exhibitions  to-day. 
On  the  other  hand,  tradition  and  nature  have  not  been 
deprived    of    their    liberty,   but   only   of    their   exclusive 


PAINTING  IN  FRANCE  235 

authority;  and  they  may  be  trasted  to  hold  their  own  in 
the  course  of  time  and  change ;  already  we  find  that  some 
of  the  Impressionists  are  taking  up  again,  because  they  have 
enduring  value,  traditions  that  had  been,  perhaps  inevitably, 
cast  aside  in  the  time  of  revolt. 

We  have  now  to  follow  the  corn^e  of  change  in  other 
countries,  and  afterwards  to  see  how  and  under  what 
influences  painting  has  fared  in  our  own  country  outside 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement. 


CHAPTER   VI 
PAINTING   IN   OTHER   COUNTRIES 

THE  title  of  this  chapter  must  be  taken  to  mean  painting 
in  other  countries  than  France  and  England.  The 
painting  of  our  own  country,  apart  from  that  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelites  and  their  following,  which  has  already- 
been  considered,  will  occupy  us  later.  As  I  have  said 
before,  this  book  being  written  primarily  for  English 
readers,  emphasis  is  laid  in  it  upon  our  own  art,  and  the 
more  material  we  have  for  comparison  before  completing 
our  survey  of  it,  the  more  useful  that  survey  will  be. 

In  the  opening  of  his  book,  English  Contemporary 
Painting f  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  says :  "  There  is  an  English 
school  of  painting.  This  is  what  first  strikes  a  visitor 
to  any  International  Exhibition  of  Fine  Arts,  in  whatever 
country  it  may  be  held.  Passing  through  the  galleries  set 
apart  for  Germany,  Austria,  Italy,  Spain,  Belgium,  Holland, 
even  for  the  United  States  or  for  Scandinavia,  you  might 
imagine  yourself  still  to  be  in  France,  and  you  are,  as  a 
fact,  always  among  artists  who  live  in  Paris,  or  who  have 
studied  in  Paris,  or  who  follow,  at  least  from  afar  off,  either 
the  discipline  of  her  school  or  the  revolutionary  movement 
of  Parisian  art  circles.  A  great  many  labels  are  required 
to  convince  you  that  the  Atlantic  rolls  between  Mr.  Sargent 
and  the  studio  of  M.  Carolus  Daran,  or  that  the  Baltic  has 

236 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  237 

been  crossed  to  reach  M.  Werenskiold  and  that  M.  Roll  did 
not  cross  it.  But  on  reaching  the  English  pictures  you  feel, 
on  the  contrary,  that  you  are  no  longer  amongst  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  it  is  doubtful  even  whether  they  may  be 
your  contemporaries."  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  says  further  that 
all  countries  except  Britain  would  be  coloured  like  France 
on  an  aesthetic  map,  "as  if  they  were  colonies  of  French 
art." 

We  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  assume  that  this  is  an 
exaggeration,  although  the  great  influence  exerted  by  French 
art  upon  the  art  of  other  countries  is  undoubted.  To  such 
influence  the  space  given  to  French  art  in  this  book  is  a 
tribute.  But  there  has  been  action  and  re-action.  If  much 
has  gone  out  from  Paris,  much  has  also  gone  into  it.  Did 
not  Delacroix  alter  his  own  work  after  seeing  Constable's 
Kay  Wain  %  The  Barbizon  school  owed  much  to  Constable ; 
the  Impressionists  owed  much  to  Turner.  This  is  not  an 
attempt  to  claim  France  as  an  aesthetic  colony  of  England, 
but  only  a  reference  to  admitted  facts  which  show  that 
something  of  not  the  least  importance  in  modern  French 
art  has  not  come  merely  by  native  genius  or  talent  improv- 
ing on  the  past.  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  himself  says  that  it  is 
the  glory  of  Constable  to  have  initiated  a  new  movement  in 
Europe.  Still,  it  is  true  that  during  the  nineteenth  century 
French  art  influenced  that  of  other  countries,  with  the 
exception  of  England,  more  than  it  was  itself  influenced  in 
return.  Not  that  the  influence  was  by  any  means  always 
a  good  one.  We  shall  soon  find  painters  returning  to  their 
own  country,  there  to  unlearn  much  that  they  had  been 
taught  in  Paris. 

It  might  be  a  question  to  which  country  we  should  go 
first  after  leaving  France,  were  it  not  that  our  own  art  had 


338  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

been  so  often  and  so  greatly  influenced  by  the  art  of  the 
Netherlands  that  gratitude  alone  might  well  lead  us  to  turn 
our  steps  thitherward ;  so  we  ^Wll  go  at  once  to  Holland. 

After  the  great  time  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Dutch 
painting  fell  very  low  in  the  eighteenth.  In  the  former 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  feebly  echoed  the  Classicism 
and  Romanticism  of  France.  We  gain  nothing  by  even 
merely  naming  the  painters  of  this  time.  But  the  old 
spirit  was  only  dormant,  not  dead ;  and  it  awoke  again  jnst 
at  the  beginning  of  the  period  that  has  been  marked  off  for 
consideration  in  this  book. 

The  awakening  began  with  Josef  Israels,  who  was  born 
at  Groningen,  in  the  north  of  Holland,  in  the  year  1824. 
He  was  of  Jewish  parentage,  and  his  father  was  a  banker. 
In  early  days  he  wished  to  become  a  rabbi,  and  studied 
earnestly  with  this  in  view.  However,  when  school  days 
were  over,  it  was  to  his  father's  business  that  he  went. 
But  he  was  to  be  neither  rabbi  nor  banker,  but  painter,  and 
he  went  first  to  the  studio  of  Jan  Kruseman,  an  academic 
painter  at  Amsterdam,  and  then  to  Paris,  where  he  studied 
under  Picot,  a  pupil  of  David.  That  is  to  say,  this  young 
Dutchman,  with  the  original  works  of  the  old  masters  of 
his  own  country  around  him,  painters  who  were  the  pioneers, 
if  not  the  founders  of  modern  art,  must  needs  turn  his 
back  upon  them  and  go  to  a  foreign  city  to  become  an 
imitator  of  imitations.  Such  for  a  time  he  became.  From 
Picot  he  passed  to  Delaroche,  and  returned  to  Amsterdam 
in  1848,  having  been  about  three  years  in  Paris.  He  at 
once  set  himself  to  paint  historical  pictures  of  the  approved 
pattern,  taking  his  subjects  from  the  Old  Testament, 
Shakespeare,  the  history  of  his  own  country,  and  similar 
sources.     These  pictures  are  regarded  now  much  as  are  re- 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  339 

pented  sins  after  conversion :  as  things  to  be  forgotten  and 
not  repeated. 

The  whole  character  of  his  art  was  changed,  however,  by 
a  compulsory  return  to  nature,  which,  like  that  of  the 
Barbizon  painters,  was  much  more  thorough  than  the  return 
of  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais.  Israels  had  been  delighted 
with  the  picturesqueness  of  the  narrow  streets  of  the  Jewish 
quarter  of  Amsterdam,  and  yet  he  had  become  an  acatlemic 
painter.  The  change  came  when  illness  compelled  him  to 
leave  the  town,  and  he  went  to  Zaandvoort,  the  village  on 
the  coast  near  Haarlem,  which  is  now  a  household  word 
amongst  artists.  Here,  away  from  galleries  and  studios,  he 
discovered  the  sea  and  the  sky  and  the  lives  and  surround- 
ings of  simple  folk  to  be  both  intensely  interesting  in 
themselves,  and  idso  the  very  best  of  material  for  art. 

Israels,  then,  did  not  learn  these  things  from  Millet ;  he 
learned  them  direct  from  life  and  nature.  His  plot  in  the 
aesthetic  map  of  art  has  not  to  be  marked  with  the  French 
colour.  In  fact,  he  washed  the  French  colour  ofif  it.  He 
had  gone  to  Paris  to  learn  what  afterwards  he  unlearned. 
Millet  had  only  just  left  the  studio  of  Delaroche  when 
Israels  entered  it.  In  1857  he  exhibited  at  the  Paris  Salon 
two  pictures  having  the  seashore  for  subject.  In  1859 
Millet's  Death  and  the  Woodcutter  was  rejected  at  the  Salon. 

Israels  is  often  called  the  Dutch  Millet,  and  the  compari- 
son is  perhaps  inevitable.  He  is  not,  however,  a  mere  echo, 
or  even  a  mere  variation  of  Millet,  either  in  the  subject- 
matter  or  the  method  of  his  art.  Millet  painted  an  epic  of 
labour.  Israels  has  painted  lyrics ;  subdued  or  sad,  mainly, 
but  still  intimate,  bringing  us  into  sympathy  "with  this  and 
that  individual  man  and  woman  and  their  children ;  whereas 
we  think  of  Millet's  people  chiefly  as  representatives  of 


340  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

many  more,  a  great  army  of  toilers  for  whom  we  feel  a  strong 
but  not  individual  sympathy. 

Israels,  also,  was  more  intimate  than  Millet  in  his  painting 
of  the  surroundings  of  the  people  in  his  pictures.  This 
almost  follows  from  his  attitude  towards  the  people  them- 
selves. Individualising  them,  he  of  necessity  treated  their 
surroundings  in  the  same  manner.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
he  entered  minutely  into  detail.  Both  in  his  portraits — for 
this  is  what  essentially  the  figures  in  these  pictures  are — and 
in  the  accessories  it  is  the  essential  only  that  he  gives.  He 
will  let  us  know  how  the  simple  dwelling  is  furnished,  what 
the  chairs  and  tables  are  like,  and  the  bedstead  and  the 
crockery,  and  so  forth,  because  all  this  is  necessary  if  we  are 
to  have  the  sense  of  intimacy  with  these  people.  But  these 
necessary  details  are  not  minutely  described.  They  do  not 
assert  themselves.  They  are  there,  and  we  know  they  are 
there;  that  is  all.  We  need  not  try  to  apply  Kuskin's 
**  inch  by  inch  "  criticism  to  these  pictures. 

Tone  and  the  play  of  light  amid  shade  and  shadow  are 
what  we  find  in  his  work  rather  than  truth  of  local  colour. 
He  lived  and  painted,  we  must  remember,  where  Rembrandt 
had  lived  and  painted,  and  where  were  many  of  his  great 
predecessor's  finest  works.  Greys  and  browns,  with  only 
absolutely  indispensable  relief  from  other  colours,  answer  all 
his  purposes.  The  breadth  of  his  treatment  and  the  subtlety 
of  the  light  and  shade  give  that  sense  of  reality,  of  life,  that 
we  have  marked  as  one  of  the  chief  gains  of  art  in  the  last 
half-century.  "We  are  with  these  sailors  toiling  on  and  by 
the  sea,  and  these  children  playing  on  the  shore;  we  are 
with  these  women  working,  nursing  children,  attending  to 
the  sick,  weeping  by  the  dead.  These  pictures,  because  of 
the  human  sympathy  of  the  painter  and  his  knowledge  and 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  241 

consummate  art,  do  not  seem  to  us  to  come  short  of  life  itself. 
And  it  is  not  the  mere  externals  of  life  that  they  set  before 
us ;  they  take  us  right  to  its  feeling,  loving  heart. 

The  awakening  of  Israels  was  not  to  be  a  solitary  one  in 
Holland.  Christoffel  Bisschop,  only  a  few  years  younger, 
also  turned  from  what  he  learned  in  Paris,  and  painted  the 
homely  life  of  his  native  Friesland,  filling  his  interiors  with 
sun-lighted  air.  We  have  already  had  to  refer  to  the  work 
of  another  Dutch  painter,  Jongkind,  who  was  older  than 
Israels,  and  also  found  his  way  to  nature,  becoming  a  fore- 
runner of  Impressionism.  He,  except  by  birth,  belongs 
rather  to  France  than  to  Holland.  But  we  soon  have  to 
add  to  the  names  of  Israels  and  Bisschop,  as  painters  who 
belong  essentially  to  their  own  country,  such  now  familiar 
names  as  Mauve,  Mesdag,  Maris,  and  others.  A  quite 
distinct  school  of  art  arose  in  Holland,  faithfully  interpreting, 
as  had  the  old  Dutch  masters  before  them,  the  land  and  its 
people.  If  they  borrowed  from  outside,  it  was  only  to 
assimilate  their  borrowings  to  native  gifts  which  altogether 
exceeded  them.  When  we  look  at  Dutch  paintings  we  do 
not  think  ourselves  in  France — "pace  M.  de  la  Sizeranne — 
we  think  ourselves  in  Holland;  and  we  think  of  the  old 
Dutch  masters,  with  a  difference  that  is  by  no  means 
wholly  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  modem  painters. 

All  these  painters  have  the  modern  feeling  for  light  and 
air ;  they  convey  the  impression  of  reality  and  life.  Anton 
Mauve  is  a  painter  of  landscapes,  not  chosen,  however,  for 
any  special  beauty.  The  most  ordinary  waste  or  cultivated 
land  will  serve.  For  are  there  not  the  sun,  the  mist  and 
the  rain  to  create  everywhere  beauty  that  is  now  brilliant, 
now  tender  and  tinged  with  melancholy,  now  passing  into 
power  and  awe  1    It  is  the  delicate,  tranquil  beauty  of  nature 


242  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  which  Mauve  responds,  and  he  paints  it  either  alone,  or 
with  men  and  women,  natural  as  nature  itself,  busy  with 
their  simple  tasks. 

The  brothers  Maris  form  an  interestingly  varied  group  of 
painters,  apart  from  the  rarity  of  three  brothers  devoting 
themselves  to  the  same  art.  There  seems  to  have  been 
nothing  in  their  ancestry  to  account  for  the  gift  which  each 
was  to  put  to  good  use.  They  were  not  of  pure  Dutch 
descent ;  their  paternal  grandfather,  in  fact,  was  a  Bohemian 
who  settled  in  Holland.  James,  the  eldest  brother,  was 
born  in  1837,  Matthew,  two  years,  and  William,  six  years, 
later.  '  Their  father  was  a  printer  at  the  Hague,  and  the 
first  evidence  we  have  of  the  practice  of  art  in  the  family 
is  his  encouraging  the  children  to  draw.  James  and  Matthew 
both  went  to  the  Art  School  at  the  Hague,  and  later  into 
the  studio  of  Van  Hove,  at  Antwerp.  James  was  after- 
wards a  pupil  of  Hebert  in  Paris,  and  Matthew  joined  him 
there.  They  were  to  depart  widely,  however,  from  any- 
thing that  could  be  learned  from  the  pupil  of  Delaroche. 
"William  Maris,  the  youngest  brother,  received  his  teaching 
mainly  from  his  brothers.  James,  who  died  in  1892,  was 
mainly  a  landscape  painter,  as  is  also  William.  The  former 
took  for  his  subject  the  typical  scenes  of  Holland,  the  wide 
stretches  of  country,  the  canals,  the  towns,  red-bricked  and 
red-roofed,  the  sea  and  the  heavily-built  fishing-boats.  Of 
course,  on  land  there  are  windmills  everywhere,  and, 
above  all,  the  sky,  which  in  Holland,  as  in  our  eastern 
counties,  will  not  let  itself  be  overlooked,  in  fact,  is  more 
there  than  elsewhere,  an  all-important  factor  in  the  land- 
scape. All  this  he  painted  strongly,  yet  at  need  delicately, 
with  a  quick  response  to  changes  of  mood  and  effect. 
William  has  gone  amongst  the  meadows  and  the  trees  and 


FANTASY 


MATTHEW   \fARIS 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  243 

painted  them,  aiul  the  pools  among  them,  reflecting  from 
myriads  of  points  the  brilliance  of  the  sun;  and  amid  all 
the  splendour  the  cattle  feed,  or  wander,  or  seek  shade 
under  the  trees,  or  cool  themselves  in  the  water.  Matthew, 
the  second  brother,  has  gone  a  wholly  different  way  in  art. 
Is  he  more  than  his  brothers  of  the  race  of  his  grand- 
father? Certainly  neither  the  wide  landscape  nor  the 
pastures  and  cattle  of  Holland  have  sufficed  for  him.  His 
brush  is  guided  by  an  inward  vision.  His  "Lausanne" 
is  like  a  dream  of  the  Middle  Ages;  and,  indeed,  he  has 
sought,  for  his  art,  more  beautiful  things  than  those  about 
him.  Israels  found  his  poetry  in  the  actual  life  of  his 
poor  neighbours ;  Matthew  Maris  paints  a  young  prince  and 
princess — young  lovers,  as  it  seems — in  old-time  costume; 
The  King's  Cliildren  is  a  drawing  that  takes  us  into  legend 
or  fairy-tale;  and  The  Christeniiuj,  The  Flower ^  He  is 
Coming y  and  The  Spinner ^  are  pictures  of  irresistible  charm, 
something  at  least  of  which  they  owe  to  the  dress  and 
architecture  of  other  days.  Another  picture,  A  Fantasy^ 
where  a  maiden  is  seated  disconsolately  by  the  fire  while 
a  youth  is  stealing  up  behind  her,  might  well  be  taken  as 
symbolical  of  the  painter's  own  art,  seeking  to  surprise 
beauty.  His  maidens  and  children  would  be  delightful  in 
any  garb ;  but  the  quaint  beauty  in  which  he  has  dressed 
them  removes  them  into  that  imaginary  land  the  sight  of 
which  sets  the  spirit  longing,  not  in  vain  it  may  be,  for 
the  world,  as  man  shapes  it  to  his  use,  to  become  more 
beautiful  than  it  is  now.  When  the  painter  of  these  idylls 
has  turned  to  landscape,  it  has  been  not  to  portray  it  or 
merely  to  interpret  its  moods,  but  to  use  it  as  a  means  for 
the  expression  of  his  own  emotion. 

H.  W,  Mesdag  paints,  with  great  fidelity  and  power,  the 


244  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

sea — the  sea  that  sailors  know,  grey  under  a  grey  sky,  or 
over  which  the  storm-clouds  hang.  Albert  Neuhuys  painted 
genre  scenes  more  brightly,  with  less  insistence  on  the 
shadows  of  life,  than  Israels. 

Around  these  and  other  older  painters  has  grown  up  a 
younger  generation,  which  has  received  abundant  help  and 
encouragement  from  such  men  as  Israels  and  Mesdag ;  and, 
particularly  in  landscape,  genre,  and  portraiture,  Dutch 
painting  shows  itself  full  of  life ;  and,  although  it  has  not 
been  unaffected  by  French  Impressionism,  it  has  had  and 
maintains  a  markedly  individual  character. 

From  Holland  we  naturally  turn  to  Belgium,  for  our  own 
art  has  owed  hardly,  if  any,  less  to  the  southern  than  to  the 
northern  Netherlands. 

Belgium,  like  Holland,  has  a  great  tradition  of  painting 
that  goes  back  to  earlier  times  even  than  those  of  the 
Van  Eycks  and  Memling.  In  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  Flemish  painters  made  up  in  this  country 
for  the  lack  of  native  talent.  Having  had  in  earlier  days 
such  painters  as  those  named  above,  and  others  of  hardly 
less  note,  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  country  could 
boast  of  Rubens,  Vandyck,  and  Jordaens;  and  they  had 
successors  of  merit.  In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  there  came  the  almost  inevitable  Classical  and 
Romantic  periods.  Frangois  Navez  was  the  pupil  of  David, 
and  painted,  among  other  portraits,  a  fine  one  of  his  master. 
His  subject-pictures,  Hagar  in  the  Desert,  and  so  forth, 
were  entirely  orthodox.  But  after  the  revolution  of  1830, 
which  established  the  independence  of  Belgium,  there  rose 
up  against  the  David  of  Belgium  a  Delacroix  in  the  person 
of  Gustave  Wappers,  under  whom,  we  recollect,  Madox 
Brown  received  a   great   part  of   his   training.     Wappers' 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  245 

Episode  of  the  Belgian  Revolution  cast  to  the  winds  all  the 
rules  of  Classicism,  and  went  boldly  for  expression,  move- 
ment, and  colour.  Nicaise  de  Keyser,  Van  Eycken,  and 
many  others  enthusiastically  followed  the  new  leader. 
Wappers  was  at  Antwerp.  At  Brussels,  Louis  Gallait,  a 
pupil  of  Delaroche  and  an  historical  painter  of  mediocre 
gifts,  also  gathered  pupils  about  him.  Henri  Leys,  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  at  Antwerp  and  elsewhere,  became  the 
painter  of  events  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

This  is  all  a  familiar  kind  of  story.  So  is  it  to  read  that 
soon  after  Courbet's  Stoneh'eakers  was  exhibited  at  Brussels 
in  1851,  though  at  the  time  it  was  received  with  derision. 
Realism  found  its  protagonist  in  Charles  De  Groux,  who 
took  his  subjects  from  among  the  poorest  and  most  miser- 
able of  the  poor,  and  earned  for  himself  the  title  of  "  the 
painter  of  social  inequalities."  Again,  the  mid-century 
justifies  itself  as  a  significant  date  in  the  history  of  modern 
painting.  Constantm  Meunier,  who  became  known  chiefly 
as  a  sculptor,  but  who  was  also  a  painter,  and  to  whom 
reference  has  already  been  made  in  connexion  with  Millet, 
was  the  true  successor  of  De  Groux.  He  went  to  live  in 
the  coal  and  iron  district  of  Belgium,  near  Mons,  and 
painted  the  miners,  the  iron  -  workers,  and  the  factory 
operatives  at  their  toil.  Both  his  pictures  and  his  sculpture 
arc  a  terrible  indictment  of  the  conditions  under  which 
some  of  the  most  laborious  and  monotonous  work  that  falls 
to  lot  of  only  too  many  people  to-day  is  carried  on. 
Nothing  that  is  gained  by  the  degradation  of  men  to  some- 
thing that  almost  sinks  below  the  human  is  worth  the 
awful  cost.  Meunier  has  set  the  degradation  before  us  with 
tremendous  power ;  and  if  it  be  alleged  against  him  that  he 
has  told  the  worst  as  if  the  whole  were  equally  bad,  it  can 


246  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

be  replied  that  the  whole  is  so  bad  that  passionately  in- 
dignant overstatement  is  entirely  pardonable,  and,  it  may 
be,  has  its  own  especial  use. 

Realism,  then,  has  found  its  place — we  may  say  its  mis- 
sion— in  Belgium.  But  all  life  is  not  such  as  De  Groux 
and  Meunier  pictured,  and  Henri  de  Braekeleer  was  a 
Realist  who,  with  the  example  of  the  old  Dutch  masters 
before  him,  found  his  subjects  among  the  working-folk 
whose  toil  brought  them  enough  with  which  to  live  comfort- 
able, if  simple  and  uneventful  lives.  Louis  Dubois,  Jan 
Stobbaerts,  and  others  became,  under  the  Courbet  influence, 
vigorous  painters  of  the  contemporary  life  of  the  people. 
Alfred  Stevens,  on  the  other  hand,  after  beginning  with 
similar  work,  became  the  painter  of  the  women  for  whose 
pleasure  and  luxury  the  masses  toil.  He  completes  the 
painting  of  social  inequalities.  He  was  born  in  Brussels; 
his  father  was  a  connoisseur  of  art.  His  older  brother, 
Joseph,  became  a  painter  of  animals;  a  younger  brother, 
Arthur,  became  a  critic  and  dealer.  Art  was  well-nigh  as 
strong  in  the  Stevens  as  in  the  Maris  family.  Alfred  went 
with  Roqueplan  to  Paris,  and  there  lived  and  died.  His  art 
is  the  reflection  of  the  life  he  lived :  luxurious  life  in  the 
great  city.  The  women  he  paints  could  not,  if  they  would, 
toil  or  spin.  They  are  the  highly  cultivated  flowers  for 
which  the  men  and  women  whom  De  Groux  and  Meunier 
painted  are  the  hotbed.  Some  day  such  flowers  will  not  be 
produced,  at  least  not  quite  like  these,  nor  at  such  terrible 
cost.  Meanwhile  there  such  women  are,  there  they  were  in 
Stevens'  day,  very  beautiful,  very  beautifully  dressed,  with 
surroundings  in  the  best  of  taste,  receiving  presents  of 
strange  Japanese  idols,  because  the  art  of  Japan  was  then 
all  the  rage  in  Paris.     How  thoroughly  Stevens  understood 


PAINTING   IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES*  247 

these  women,  how  exquisitely  he  painted  them — their  beau- 
tiful hair  and  features,  their  delicate  complexions,  their  ease, 
their  grace,  their  dress,  so  elegant;  how  wonderfully  he 
painted  the  satins,  the  silks,  the  transparent  muslins  and 
laces,  showing  the  softly  veiled  flesh-tints  beneath,  with  the 
mild,  warm  sunlight  making  subtle  play  about  it  all !  How 
lovely  are  these  flowers — if  we  can  forget  the  cost  which 
Meunier  so  grimly  counted  ! 

Stevens  had  an  exquisite  sense  of  colour  than  which 
nothing  could  be  more  suited  to  the  subjects  he  painted.  In 
the  reproduction  that  serves  to  illustrate  his  work  here  we 
can  realise  the  subtle  light  of  the  original,  and  we  can  almost 
imagine  its  colour,  play  of  gold  and  blue  against  the  warm 
background,  delicate  pink  of  the  flesh,  and  forcing  notes  of 
red  in  the  ear,  nostril,  and  mouth  of  "  the  present."  And 
what  of  the  woman's  face,  and  the  look  fixed  upon  the 
grotesque  little  monster  before  her  ?  What  is  she  thinking  % 
And  is  there  any  kinship  between  her  and  the  spirit  that  the 
cunning  Eastern  craftsman  has  sought  to  embody  in  the 
fawning,  cat-like  creature  he  has  made?  It  is  a  strangely 
fascinating  picture,  whether  it  states  a  human  problem  or 
not. 

De  Jonghe  and  other  painters  played  a  similar  role  to  that 
of  Stevens ;  and,  lest  the  reader  should  think  that  I  have 
put  social  contrasts  too  much  to  the  front  in  writing  of  these 
painters,  suggesting  what  was  far  from  their  thoughts — 
though  this  cannot  be  maintained  with  regard  to  Meunier — 
let  me  mention  the  picture  by  which  Charles  Hermans, 
another  Belgian  painter,  is  best  known,  The  Daton,  now  in 
the  Gallery  of  Modern  Paintings  at  Brussels.  In  the  early 
morning  revellers  in  evening  dress  are  leaving  a  restaurant ; 
two  women  are  clinging  to  a  man  who  is  so  nearly  reeling- 


248  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

drunk  as  to  make  it  likely  that  the  trio — one  of  the  women, 
at  least,  being  also  drunk — will  soon  be  following  the 
dropped  bouquets  into  the  gutter.  In  the  street  are  men 
going  to  their  work.  The  wife  of  one  of  them,  as  she  holds 
his  arm,  casts  a  saddened  glance  at  the  sorry  spectacle  at  the 
restaurant  door.  A  fur-coated,  silk-hatted  man  within  the 
doorway  looks  as  if  the  sight  of  the  working-folk  were 
awakening  in  him  some  sense  of  shame.  Here  is  a  picture 
with  a  purpose,  a  Hogarthian  picture,  as  it  has  inevitably 
been  called.  I  neither  condemn  it  nor  defend  it,  but  only 
instance  it.  I  may  add,  however,  that  it  is  an  excellent 
piece  of  realistic  work.  Still  other  painters  came,  who  in 
their  pictures  of  the  people  were  almost  carrying  on  a 
socialist  propaganda.  On  the  other  hand,  Emile  Wauters 
turned  to  history  painting,  to  Eastern  subjects,  and  to  por- 
traiture. His  best-known  picture  is  Th^  Madness  of  Hugo 
van  der  Goes,  now  in  the  Brussels  Gallery ;  it  shows  the 
choristers  singing  to  calm  the  painter's  overwrought  nerves 
and  brain,  and  the  pathetic  scene  is  powerfully  rendered, 
with  fine,  sympathetic  feeling,  and  yet  with  dignity  and 
restraint. 

We  have  had  the  Classical,  the  Romantic,  and  the  Realistic, 
and  now — passing  the  horrible  imaginings  of  the  etchings  of 
Felicien  Rops — we  come  to  a  kindred  spirit  of  Gustave 
Moreau  in  the  painter  Fernand  KhnopfF,  who  has  sought  to 
make  outward  forms  reveal  the  innermost  realities,  in  various 
pictures  in  which  the  Sphinx  appears.  The  Secret,  and  other 
enigmatic  works.  The  Secret  is  a  double  picture ;  there 
is  a  masked  woman  looking  at  a  masked  head ;  and 
there  is  the  beautiful  little  Gothic  annexe  of  the  Hospital  of 
St.  Jean  at  Bruges  reflected  in  the  still  water  of  the  canal. 
What  does  it  all  mean  :  masked  face  searching  masked  face. 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  249 

the  outside  of  the  building  hiding  the  inside,  the  reflection 
in  the  water  hiding  the  depths  of  the  water  1  Tliere  is  an 
unknown  reality  behind  phenomena:  is  this  picture  a 
strangely  beautiful  affirmation  of  the  agnosticism  of  Herljert 
Spencer  1  Others  of  Khnopffs  pictures  touch  deep  chords 
of  feeling,  whether  they  convey  any  clear  meaning  or  not ; 
we  seem  to  be  deep  down  with  the  subliminal  self. 

We  have  hitherto  followed  the  subject  painters  of 
Belgium.  There  has  been  no  lack  of  landscape  painters. 
Passing  with  only  this  general  reference  the  painters  who, 
before  and  about  1 850,  produced  mere  studio  compositions, 
we  find  Alfred  de  KnyfF  doing  what  Constable  taught  the 
Barbizon  painters  to  do,  and  what  he  himself  learned  from 
them  :  painting  nature  green  when  he  saw  it  green.  This 
was  too  much  for  the  Belgian  critics,  as  Constable's  truth 
had  been  for  Sir  George  Beaumont  and  his  like,  and  that 
of  the  Barbizon  painters  for  the  critics  of  Paris ;  for  they 
had  all  been  brought  up  on  brown.  Hippolyte  Boulenger, 
who  was  born  in  1838  and  died  in  1874,  painted  from  nature, 
and  became  a  devotee  of  light  and  air.  On  his  initiative  a 
number  of  artists,  in  1868,  formed  the  Societe  Libre  des 
Beaux  Arts ;  its  first  exhibition  was  held  in  1870,  and  in 
1871  it  began  to  issue  a  publication.  Art  Libre,  in  which 
the  members  of  the  society  set  forth  their  views.  Even  if 
there  be  new  tilings  under  the  sun,  this  is  not  new ;  it  is 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood  of  Belgium,  with  its  journal 
corresponding  to  The  Germ.  Kot  that  the  kind  of  art 
practised  and  advocated  by  the  Belgian  Society  was  the 
same  as  that  for  which  the  Pre-Raphaelites  fought.  In  this 
respect  it  may  be  compared  rather  to  the  New  English  Art 
Club.  Not  detail,  or  the  brilliance  of  nature's  colouring, 
were  what  the  Belgian  painters  sought  in  breaking  away 


250  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

from  convention  and  claiming  the  right  to  paint  nature  as 
they  saw  it.  Truth  of  tone,  not  of  detail — harmony,  not 
brilliance  of  colour,  were  the  aims  they  set  before  themselves. 
Baron,  Heymans,  and  others  carried  on  the  movement, 
though  the  painting  of  detail  did  not  go  wholly  without 
support.     Clays,  Bouvier,  and  others  were  marine  painters. 

We  hurry  on  quickly,  with  the  general  features  of  this 
art  in  view,  to  come  to  those  painters  who  have  been  in- 
fluenced by  the  Impressionists ;  and  when  we  have  reached 
them  and  look  back,  we  find  that  painting  in  Belgium  has 
run  a  course  almost  identical  with  that  run  by  French  art 
during  the  same  period,  and  this  because  Belgian  art,  the 
close  relations  of  the  two  countries  explaining  it,  was  largely 
modelled  upon  the  art  of  France.  Emile  Glaus  is  one  of 
the  painters  who  followed  the  Impressionists  in  seizing 
fugitive  beauties  of  light  and  colour  and  painting  them  in 
all  their  brilliance.  Born  in  1849,  the  son  of  poor  parents, 
it  was  only  with  great  difficulty  that  he  obtained  a  much- 
desired  training  in  art.  After  some  years  of  portrait  paint- 
ing and  subject  painting  in  Spain  and  Morocco  he  turned  to 
landscape  and  became  the  recorder  of  the  beauty  with  which 
the  sun  can  invest  the  homely  landscape  and  farm-buildings 
of  Flanders.  There  is  no  Avatching  for  the  spectacular 
effects  which  only  come  at  rare  intervals,  but  keen  en- 
joyment of  the  beauty  which  nature  gives  as  a  daily,  nay, 
far  oftener  than  a  daily  portion,  and  the  interpretation 
of  it  in  terms  of  art.  In  him,  and  not  in  him  alone, 
Belgian  art  shows  itself  sensitive  to  the  new  freshness  and 
intimacy  of  touch  with  nature,  and  fulfils  the  promise  that 
was  born  with  Jongkind. 

Like  Holland  and  Belgium,  Germany  had  a  long  tradition 
of  art   before    the   modern    period   began.     Then,  in   the 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  251 

seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  there  came,  in  part 
under  tlie  influence  of  France,  a  time  "when  classical  art 
reigned  supreme.  Later  in  the  eighteenth  century,  Chodo- 
wiecki  and  others  gave  to  tlie  art  a  more  realistic  bent. 
Then,  later  still,  the  classical  fetters  were  riveted  on  again. 
Much  was  written  for  and  against  the  contention  that  Greek 
art  had  created  forms  that  were  binding  for  all  time;  and,  as 
in  France,  pedantic  Classicism,  protest  notwithstanding,  held 
the  free  spirit  of  art  enchained  for  many  years.  Anton 
Kafael  Mengs — the  Christian  names  chosen  for  him  by  his 
father  are  a  sign  of  the  times,  and  a  particular  prophecy 
with  regard  to  himself — and  Carstens  were  the  leaders  of 
this  reactionary  movement.  With  whatever  intelligence 
and  sympathy  they  might  interpret  Greek  thought  in  the 
forms  bequeathed  by  Greek  art,  they  were  not  expressing 
emotions  native  to  their  own  time,  and  were  leaving  un- 
touched what  was  of  paramount  importance,  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  life  and  the  nature  about  them.  \Ye  may 
dream  of  the  past ;  we  may  rightly,  in  a  measure,  live  in  it ; 
because  the  past  had  often  what  the  present  lacks,  and  not 
to  forget  it  is  to  enrich  the  present  and  ensure  a  better 
future;  the  mistake  is  to  live  wholly  in  the  past,  and 
this  is  what  these  artists  of  the  Classical  period  sought 
to  do. 

German  art  made  the  great  step  towards  deliverance  by 
a  change  of  bondage.  To  enthusiasm  for  the  pre-Christian 
art  of  Greece,  followed  enthusiasm  for  the  Christian  art 
of  the  early  Renaissance.  This  was  a  more  plausible 
attitude,  at  least ;  for  though  no  one  any  longer  believed 
in  Zeus,  most  people  did  believe  in  Christ.  The  Classical 
period  was  followed,  we  may  say,  by  a  Gothic  period ;  just 
as,  in  this  country,  there  was  also  a  Gothic  revival  which 


252  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

had  a  powerful  influence  on  the  romantic  side  of  our  Pre- 
RaphaeUte  movement.  It  was  enthusiasm,  as  we  have  seen, 
for  the  Gothic  buildings  of  Oxford  and  northern  France 
that  determined  Burne-Jones  and  Morris  to  devote  them- 
selves to  art.  The  medisBval  picturesqueness  of  Nuremberg 
inspu'cd  in  the  writer  Wackenroder,  just  before  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  enthusiasm  for  the  Middle  Ages. 
Who  that  has  wandered  until  weary,  if  not  footsore, 
through  the  streets  and  into  the  churches  and  mediaeval 
public  buildings  of  Nuremberg,  and  revelled  in  the  wonder- 
ful sky-lines  produced  everywhere  by  the  infinitely  varied 
beauty  of  the  high-pitched  roofs,  with  a  love  of  Gothic 
art  already  awakened  at  home,  or,  perhaps,  in  France, 
cannot  understand  the  joy  with  which  such  art  came  to 
a  German  as  a  revelation  of  an  era  of  creative,  national 
art  in  his  country's  past?  Wackenroder's  story  of  the  joys 
of  an  art-loving  friar  was  the  beginning  of  a  German  Pre- 
Raphaelite  movement.  Frederick  Schlegel  anticipated  by 
nearly  half  a  century  Holman  Hunt's  conclusion  that  corrup- 
tion entered  into  art  in  and  after  the  time  of  Raphael  and 
Michael  Angelo ;  and  he  sought  to  turn  the  painters  back 
to  the  earlier  Italian  artists,  and  even  to  the  primitive 
Germans. 

Art  was  indeed  caught  up  in  the  new  enthusiasm;  not 
Classical  Rome,  but  Christian  Rome,  was  the  shrine  at 
which,  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  such 
painters  as  Overbeck,  Cornelius,  Schnorr,  Fiihrich,  and 
Steinle  went  to  worship.  Of  course  there  was  war  between 
these  enthusiasts  for  things  mediseval  and  the  enthusiasts 
for  things  Greek,  and  the  latter  took  up  as  a  contemptuous 
epithet  for  the  former  the  old  term  of  derision — Nazarenes. 
To-day  we  are  inclined  to   cry   a    plague    on    both    their 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  253 

houses.  Pale  imitations  of  the  forms  in  which  the  Greeks 
imagined  their  gods,  and  equally  pale  imitations  of  the 
Italian  picturing  of  the  Biblical  records,  have  little  interest 
for  us,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  Madox  Brown  was  much 
impressed  by  Overbeck  and  Cornelius  and  their  work ;  and 
in  this  way,  they  are  linked  with  the  history  of  our  own 
art,  in  addition  to  having  a  distinct  place  in  the  history 
of  German  painting.  Into  detail  respecting  their  work  we 
must  not  go.  It  must  suffice  to  say  that  with  Munich  as  a 
centre,  there  developed  an  art  based  on  that  of  the  earlier 
Italian  painters. 

Away  in  the  north,  on  the  other  hand,  with  Diisseldorf  as 
a  centre,  there  sprang  up  a  Romantic  school,  which  had  no 
contempt  for  the  later  Italian  masters,  and  went  freely  to 
myth,  legend,  the  Bible,  and  the  history  and  literature  of 
any  period  for  its  subjects.  The  painters  furnished  pictorial 
illustration  to  the  literature  that  was  then  in  vogue.  To  this 
race  belong  such  painters  as  Hildebrandt,  Steinbruck,  and 
Stilke.  Then  came  Alfred  Rethel  who,  bom  in  1816  and 
dying  in  1859,  belongs  to  the  period  just  preceding  the  one 
selected  for  study  in  this  book.  In  his  designs  for  frescoes 
in  the  Kaisersaal  at  Aix  la  Chapelle  he  told  the  story 
of  the  deeds  of  Charlemagne.  His  art  was  essentially 
German,  an  art  of  vigorous  expression,  not  of  beauty,  as  was 
that  of  Albert  Diirer.  Its  character  has  become  familiar  to 
many  who  have  never  seen  or  heard  of  his  larger  work, 
through  reproductions  of  the  two  small  designs.  Death  the 
Assassin  and  Death  the  Fi-iend,  the  former  representing 
Death  dancing  and  fiddling  on  bones,  as  the  dancers  at  the 
Parisian  masked-ball  lie  plague-stricken  on  the  floor  and 
the  terrified  musicians  steal  away;  and  the  other.  Death 
tolling  the  bell  for  the  old  sexton  who  sits  dead  in  his  chair 


254  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  his  room  in  the  church-tower,  lighted  by  the  rays  of  the 
setting  sun  half-sunk  below  the  horizon.  Moritz  Schwind, 
born  in  Vienna  in  1804  and  dying  in  1871,  held  as  his 
artistic  creed  that  an  artist  should  devote  himself  to  that 
which  he  himself  deeply  felt,  to  that  which  took  hold  of 
him,  whatever  it  might  be.  He  particularly  inveighed 
against  imitation  of  the  Italian  masters  in  language  that 
reminds  us  of  Holman  Hunt's,  urging  that  such  imitation 
divided  a  man  from  his  own  personality.  But  Schwind  did 
not,  like  our  realistic  Pre-Raphaelites  and  the  French 
Realists  and  Impressionists,  go  straight  to  nature  and  to  life 
for  inspiration ;  he  lived  in  the  past,  in  myth  and  legend 
and  the  picturesqueness  of  earlier  days. 

Schwind  asserted  that  foreign  influence  was  disastrous  to 
a  nation's  art.  The  generation  of  German  painters  that  suc- 
ceeded him  came  to  the  exactly  opposite  conclusion  and 
looked  to  the  influence  of  French  and  Belgian  art  for  the 
salvation  of  that  of  their  own  country.  They  were  right. 
There  is  nationality  in  art,  despite  "Whistler's  saying  to  the 
contrary ;  but  this  does  not  mean  that  a  nation  is  never  to 
learn  anything  from  the  art  of  other  nations.  In  the  former 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  German  painters  learned 
little  or  nothing  from  their  contemporaries  abroad,  who, 
however,  had  much  to  teach  them.  At  the  mid-century  the 
Germans  found  their  way  to  Paris,  to  Antwerp,  and  to 
Brussels;  they  became  acquainted  with  the  works  of 
Delacroix,  Delaroche,  Couture,  Wappers,  and  Gallait,  and 
many  another.  There  was  nothing  here,  of  course,  com- 
pletely to  revolutionise  their  art,  but  there  were  differences 
in  design  and  colour,  there  was  a  struggling  towards  a  more 
vigorous  and  realistic  treatment  of  the  same  themes  as  those 
the   Germans  had  been  accustomed  to   treat,  that  greatly 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  255 

modified  their  work.  Karl  Piloty  based  his  art  on  colour. 
Feuerbach,  who  was  genuinely  inspired  by  the  old  myth- 
ologies, remained,  for  the  most  part,  a  classical  painter, 
as,  coming  rather  later,  Hans  Makart  treated  classical  sub- 
jects in  a  scenic  manner.  Victor  Miiller,  like  Delacroix,  by 
whom  he  was  greatly  influenced,  added  one  more  to  the 
number  of  illustrators  of  Shakespeare,  of  whom  there  have 
been  so  many,  of  very  various  merit,  in  the  poet's  own 
country.  History  painting  on  the  big  scale,  as  we  see  it 
now  in  the  Louvre,  was  taken  from  France  to  Germany  by 
Richter,  Schrader,  and  others.  In  fact,  one  influence  of 
French  and  Belgian  art  on  that  of  Germany  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  seen  in  the  long 
succession  of  history  painters,  even  the  names  alone  of 
whom  we  must  not  chronicle  here. 

Genre  painting  had  its  place  in  Germany  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  century  alongside  an  art  engaging  the  mind 
in  higher  things,  or  at  least  in  things  more  highly  esteemed. 
It  was  here,  almost  inevitably,  that  painting  came  nearest 
to  life,  except  in  portraiture ;  and  in  our  own  time  Germany 
has  had  its  counterparts  of  our  own  Wilkie,  Mulready, 
Webster,  and  others,  in  its  Knaus,  Defregger,  Vautier,  and 
the  rest.  In  all  works  of  this  kind  there  is  much  detail 
and  incident;  the  pictures  are  prosy  stories  of  the  life 
of  the  people.  If  they  awaken  emotion  it  is  not  by  any 
subtlety  in  the  art,  but  because  there  are  things  the  plainest 
recital  of  which  can  move  us. 

So,  also,  with  landscape  painting :  during  the  former  half 
of  the  century  it  is  a  matter  of  little  more  than  picturesque 
views  and  scenic  effects.  The  great  majority  of  the 
painters  of  those  years,  and,  indeed,  many  of  those  painters 
who   have  lived  on   until   our   own  time,   were  men  in 


2S6  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

whose  opinion  only  the  exceptional  could  be  of  real  and 
lasting  importance.  There  was  little  quiet,  immediate  inter- 
course with  nature  and  life;  the  relation  of  the  artists 
to  their  surroundings  may  be  compared  to  that  of  strangers 
who,  when  they  are  introduced,  must  keep  up  a  conver- 
sation. Friends  can  be  together  and  need  no  important  or 
sensational  topics — indeed,  little  or  no  talk  at  all ;  silence 
does  not  mean  awkwardness ;  they  have  a  sympathy  that 
needs  not  to  be  constantly  put  to  proof.  Intimacy  between 
art  and  the  subjects  of  art  did  not  exist  fifty  years  ago  as  it 
exists  to-day. 

This  coldness  was  broken  through  in  the  region  of  history 
by  Adolf  Menzel.  He  was  born  in  Breslau  in  1815,  spent 
his  life  in  Berlin,  where  he  was  a  very  familiar  figure,  and 
died  there  in  1905,  the  whole  city  lamenting  his  loss.  His 
achievement  was  to  realise  that  history  was  being  made 
in  his  own  time,  and  to  raise  the  painting  of  contemporary 
events  to  the  dignity  of  historical  painting.  We  and  those 
who  shall  follow  us  may  or  may  not  be  interested  in  scenes 
from  the  life  of  Christ  painted  by  an  Overbeck  or  a 
Cornelius,  or  in  an  epic  of  Charlemagne  designed  by  a 
Rethel ;  all  will  depend  upon  their  imaginative  gift,  without 
which  their  work  will  be  mere  tableau;  but  we  must  be 
interested  when  Menzel  paints  King  William  setting  out  to 
join  the  Army,  or  in  the  sphere  of  industry,  The  Iron 
Foundry.  Why  should  the  war  of  Troy  be  matter  for  an 
epic  and  not  the  war  of  Germany  and  France,  or  Vulcan  in 
his  smithy  be  fine  material  for  art  and  not  the  indubitable 
actual  Vulcan  of  to-day  1  The  question  has  been  answered 
by  showing  that  there  is  no  good  reason  for  such  things 
to  be. 

Those  who  saw   the    exhibition   of   Menzel's  life-work 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  257 

at  Berlin  in  the  spring  of  1905,  know  how  keenly  observant 
and  imwearyingly  industrious  he  was.  At  the  same  time  it 
was  evident  that  he  was  hardly  more  than  a  chronicler  of 
facts  ;  there  is  little  imagination  in  his  work.  His  realism 
has  not  the  dramatic  intensity  that  informs  the  art  of  Madox 
Brown ;  nor  has  it  the  subtle,  sensuous  charm  and  personal 
intimacy  of  that  of  the  French  Impressionists.  He  gives 
only  a  plain,  prose  record.  He  went  so  far  into  the  past  as 
to  make  the  life  of  Frederick  the  Great  the  subject  of  many 
pictures;  but  contemporary  life,  from  State  ceremonials  to 
Sunday  crowds  in  the  Tuileries  Gardens,  scenes  in  Alpine 
health-resorts,  a  crush  in  the  Piazza  d'Erbe  at  Verona,  and 
the  exhausting  toil  of  the  ironworker,  were  the  chief 
material  of  his  painstaking  art.  He  was  a  German  version 
of  our  English  Frith. 

While  Menzel  was  recording  contemporary  scenes  and 
events,  Franz  Lenbach  was  painting  a  series  of  powerful 
and  finely  interpretative  portraits ;  doing  for  Germany  that 
which  "Watts  more  than  any  other  of  our  painters  did  for 
England  during  the  same  time.  Little  more  than  the  head 
is  of  moment  in  Lenbach's  portraits,  and,  in  the  head, 
chiefly  the  eyes,  through  the  startlingly  vivid  expression 
of  which  the  very  soul  seems  to  become  visible.  His 
Emperor  William  I,  in  the  decline  of  his  life;  Bismarck, 
the  man  of  iron  plainly  seen  as  such,  with  an  intensity  of 
expression  that  makes  the  face  seem  almost  visibly  to 
quiver ;  his  Moltke,  Strossmayer,  Dbllinger,  and  many  other 
portraits,  will  make  more  vivid  the  reading  of  history  for 
the  people  of  the  future,  as  indeed  they  already  begm  to  do 
for  us.  They  cast  aside  all  accessories;  a  wizard  might 
have  called  forth  the  naked  spirit. 

Passing  even  unnamed   other  exponents  of  realism,  we 


25S  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

have  to  note  that  Germany  has  also  had  its  representatives 
in  the  same  field  of  imaginative  art  as  that  in  which  Moreau 
and  Chavannes,  Watts,  Rossetti,  and  Bunie-Jones,  and,  in 
Belgium,  Khnopfif,  have  worked.  These  men  differ  from 
the  Classicists  and  Romanticists  of  earlier  generations,  in 
that  mythology  has  not  been  approached  from  the  outside, 
as  something  lending  itself  peculiarly  to  the  ends  of  art  by 
giving  occasion  for  use  of  the  forms  created  by  the  Greeks, 
and  held  to  be  of  paramount  aesthetic  value,  but  as  a  means 
for  the  expression  of  genuine  emotion.  Wordsworth,  who, 
as  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  call  to  mind,  "  walked 
with  Nature,"  and  felt  always  that  he  was  communing  with 
the  great  spirit  that  informed  nature,  could  none  the  less  in 
a  moment  of  depression  almost  long  for  the  gods  of  Greece 
to  return,  so  that  he  could 

Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea  ; 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn. 

Though  the  gods  of  Greece  be  dead,  we  cannot  yet  dis- 
pense with  them  as  aids  to  the  expression  of  thoughts  and 
emotions  identical  with  or  akin  to  those  that  called  them 
forth.  In  Germany,  Feuerbach,  we  may  say,  lived  in  the 
very  atmosphere  of  the  old  myths;  Arnold  Boecklin,  his 
friend  and  almost  his  exact  contemporary,  older  by  only 
about  a  year,  used  them  to  express  his  own  emotions  when 
face  to  face  with  nature.  He  was  an  imaginative  landscape 
painter ;  he  felt  that  in  nature  there  was  a  life  akin  to  his 
own,  though  vastly  exceeding  it  in  power.  He  painted  A 
Villa  hy  the  Sea^  and  the  bitter  wind  that  bows  the  stately 
heads  of  the  cypresses  becomes  a  symbol  of  the  grief  of  the 
woman  who  stands  with  bowed  head  by  the  waves,  and  a 
prelude  to  his  Island  of  the  Dead.     Silence  in  the  forest 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  259 

haunts  his  imagination  and  takes  the  form  of  a  strange  wild- 
eyed  monster  passing  amid  the  pines.  The  sight  of  a 
boisterous  sea  raises  the  vision  of  mermen  and  mermaids 
disporting  themselves  in  it.  When  rocks  fall  headlong 
down  the  mountain-side,  what  is  it  but  Pan  frightening  the 
shepherd?  And  there  must  needs  be  terrific  monsters 
dwelling  in  a  gorge  like  that  of  the  Via  Mala,  the  name  of 
which  is  evidence  of  the  prevalence  of  such  a  feeling,  as  is 
the  legend,  not  confined  only  to  one  Swiss  pass,  that  there 
are  wild  chasms  over  which  no  bridge  could  have  been  built 
without  the  Devil's  aid.  Himself  a  man  of  powerful  phy- 
sique, it  was  the  power  of  nature  that  most  laid  hold  of 
him ;  he  looked  as  if  he  would  answer  the  lightning  with  a 
flashing  eye  and  the  thunder  with  a  shout.  His  colour 
answers  to  his  o^vn  exuberant  strenuousness ;  so  intense,  so 
uncompromising,  refusing  each  of  them  to  abate  one  tittle  of 
its  utmost  power,  are  his  reds  and  blues  and  greens,  that  to 
eyes  unused  to  them  they  are  little  less  than  intolerable. 
Yet  softly  blended  and  harmonised  colours  would  have  been 
little  to  the  purpose  for  the  expression  of  such  exuberant 
vitality.  We  may  compare  his  feeling  towards  nature  with 
Madox  Brown's  penetrative  sympathy  with  his  feUow-men. 
It  is  as  if  the  spirit  of  nature  had  gripped  the  one  and  the 
spirit  of  humanity  the  other,  and  resistlessly  forced  the  hand 
to  express,  not  the  mere  form,  but  the  very  essence  of  nature 
and  of  humanity.  For  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  art  of 
Boecklin  is  as  realistic  as  that  of  Madox  Brown.  His  gods, 
mermen,  mermaids,  and  nymphs  are  no  ghosts;  they  are 
real  with  a  flesh-and-blood  reality.  There  is  no  question  of 
both  the  power  and  the  spontaneity  of  his  art. 

Hans  Thoma  is  a  landscape  painter  who  in  many  of  his 
pictures    bids   forth   again    the  gods   of    old;  while    Max 


26o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Klinger  can  perhaps  only  be  likened  to  Gustave  Moreau  in 
the  fecundity  of  an  imagination  that  uses  everything, 
Pagan  and  Christian  alike,  to  body  forth  the  unseen. 
Before  his  pictures  we  feel  as  if  a  spiritualist  medium  were 
clothing  revelations  in  the  forms  of  art.  Franz  Stuck,  born 
in  1863,  and  therefore  wholly  of  our  own  time,  has,  like 
Boecklin,  made  the  gods  and  satyrs  and  nymphs  of  Greece 
live  again ;  but  though  he  treats  these  with  a  certain  dramatic 
power,  he  seems  to  lack  the  qualities — spiritual,  we  must  call 
them — that  are  needed  for  anything  that  can  be  accounted 
an  adequate  setting-forth  of  themes  drawn  from  Christianity. 
Michael  Munkacsy's  pictures,  Christ  before  Pilate,  "Not 
this  man,  but  BarabbasI"  and  The  Crucijixion  have  been 
seen  in  this  country.  They  arc  attempts,  melodramatic  in 
character,  at  a  realistic  portrayal — and  perhaps  a  naturalistic 
interpretation — of  events  described  in  the  Bible. 

Fritz  von  Udhe  has  learned  what  the  French  have 
had  to  teach  of  the  realism  that  fills  the  picture  with  light 
and  air,  and  having  painted  many  pictures  with  familiar 
scenes  of  contemporary  life  for  subject,  he  has  ventured 
upon  the  doubtful  path  of  giving  to  the  narratives  of  the 
Gospels  a  wholly  modern  setting.  Yet  the  sincerity  and 
the  spirituality  of  the  treatment  of  these  themes  are  beyond 
question.  It  is  in  a  modern  schoolroom  that  Christ  gathers 
the  little  children  round  him ;  to  such  peasants  as  we  see  in 
field  and  village  to-day  he  delivers  the  sublime  teaching  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  in  a  farm-kitchen  such  peasants 
invite  the  Lord  Jesus  to  be  their  guest ;  the  Last  Supper  is 
eaten  with  Christ  by  men  of  our  own  time ;  and  whether  or 
not  we  think  that  religion  needs  or  is  really  helped  by  such 
an  expedient  as  this,  we  can  find  no  fault  with  the  way  in 
which  the  painter,  having  determmed  it  to  be  right,  has 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  261 

carried  it  out.  The  doubt — to  many  it  will  be  more  than  a 
doubt — of  its  value  to  religion  we  need  not  here  seek  to 
resolve. 

It  is  not  possible  here,  it  is  not  needful  to  our  purpose, 
to  give  anything  approaching  a  complete  survey  of  the  art 
of  Germany  to-day.  So  varied  is  the  work  of  its  exponents, 
so  numeious  are  the}',  that  not  a  few  pages,  but  volumes 
would  be  required  had  this  to  be  done.  We  need  only  to 
see,  with  help  of  a  few  conspicuous  instances,  that  German 
artists,  like  those  of  other  countries,  have  passed  from  a 
narrow  conception  of  their  mission,  imposed  upon  those  who 
preceded  them  by  too  great  reverence  for  tradition,  to  a 
catholic  understanding  of  what  it  is  both  lawful  and  ex- 
pedient for  them  to  do.  One  more  painter  only  need  be 
named,  ^lax  Liebermann,  who  has  adopted,  in  painting 
scenes  of  modern  life,  the  general  aims  of  the  French 
Impressionists,  and  has  in  this  given  a  lead  to  many  younger 
painters.  He  was  born  in  Berlin  in  1847.  An  early  desire 
to  be  an  artist  was  opposed  by  his  father,  a  merchant  who 
had  other  wishes  for  his  son.  But  the  bent  towards  art 
was  too  strong  to  be  resisted,  and  it  was  with  his  father's 
consent  that  the  youth  eventually  had  his  way.  After 
studying  at  Weimar  he  went  to  Paris,  from  there  to 
Holland,  and  again  to  Paris,  studied  the  works  of  the 
Barbizon  painters,  visited  Millet  at  Barbizon,  and  came 
under  the  influence  of  the  Impressionist  group.  It  was 
not,  however,  until  after  other  wanderings,  and  the  painting 
of  pictures  of  religious  subjects,  that  he  found  his  vocation 
in  the  painting  of  scenes  from  everyday  life  treated  in  an 
Impressionist  manner.  An  Asylum  for  Old  Men,  painted 
in  Amsterdam,  whither  he  had  gone  because  his  religious 
pictures  had  given  offence  in  Munich,  obtained  a  medal  of 


262  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  third  class  at  the  Paris  Salon  of  1881 ;  and  now,  reputa- 
tion having  thus  iDeen  made,  he  returned  to  live  in  his  own 
country.  He  has  also  spent  much  time  at  Zaandvoort,  the 
Dutch  village  already  mentioned  in  connexion  with  Josef 
Israels,  whom  he  met  there  daring  his  stay  in  Holland. 
The  subject  of  Liebermann's  art  is  simply  life  being  lived 
in  a  world  that  has  an  atmosphere  and  in  which  the  sun 
shines.  His  pictures  are  purely  pictorial ;  they  tell  no  story 
and  seek  to  enforce  no  moral.  The  people  he  has  painted 
are  the  working  poor,  but  he  has  taken  no  gloomy  view  of 
their  lot.  They  toil,  but  they  seem  healthy  and  happy  in 
their  toil,  and  they  are  always  in  the  sunshine.  It  dapples 
everything  as  it  shines  through  the  trees  in  the  Amsterdam 
asylum  picture ;  it  floods  the  rooms  in  which  are  working 
the  cobbler  and  his  boy,  the  sempstress,  and  the  flax- 
spinners.  His  pictures  of  w^omen  and  girls  out  in  the  open, 
mending  nets,  or — as  in  our  illustration — tending  sheep  or 
goats,  remind  us  strongly  of  the  work  of  Millet — only  these 
people  are  happier  than  those  of  Millet.  It  takes  all  sorts, 
we  say,  to  make  a  world.  It  takes  many  artists  of  very 
various  temperaments  to  interpret  even  a  little  corner  of 
our  world  ;  and,  even  then,  how  much  is  left  untold  ! 

Here  must  end  our  brief  survey  of  German  art.  Did  it 
profess  to  be  a  record  of  all  painters  of  considerable  merit, 
much  would  have  to  be  added.  As  a  survey  to  aid  in 
forming  a  general  estimate  of  the  art  of  our  own  coimtry  in 
relation  to  that  of  others,  it  may  suffice. 

The  countries  whose  art  we  have  already  considered — 
France,  Holland,  Belgium,  and  Germany — are  the  most 
important  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  us  to  understand  the 
general  progress  of  painting  during  the  period  we  have 
under  review.     To  them  we  must  add  America  or,  strictly, 


HHM^V' 

ini 

liitr'-^  ^ 

f^ 

^^^^^^^KF 

■ 

^  ■■rJni^^^^^i 

™B^   \^i 

^^H 

m 

I..  ', 

J 

PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  263 

the  United  States  of  America,  whose  artists — we  can  liardly 
say,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  whose  art — have  had  a 
marked  influence  on  the  art  of  our  own  country.  First, 
however,  we  must  say  what  seems  needfid  about  the  art 
of  other  European  countries,  to  which  I  purpose  to  refer  in 
only  the  most  general  terms.  Russia  may  be  left  out  of 
account  altogether;  not  because  painting  in  Russia  lacks 
ii  iterest  and  importance,  but  because  it  is  not  in  close  rela- 
tion to  the  art-movements  that  have  influenced  and  still 
influence  the  art  of  the  rest  of  Europe  and  America  and 
our  own  country.  Of  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden  but 
little  need  be  said.  They  are  among  the  provinces  of 
European  art,  taking  from  the  great  centres  much  more 
than  they  have  to  give.  Their  painters  treat  historical, 
religious,  genre,  and  landscape  subjects  with  only  local 
differences — interesting,  however,  to  note — from  the  way 
in  which  they  are  treated  elsewhere.  Without  the  aid  of 
illustrations,  however,  what  could  be  said  here  would  only 
be  in  the  way  of  record  of  things  much  less  familiar  than 
are  the  works  of  the  French,  Dutch,  Belgian,  and  German 
painters  already  discussed ;  and  a  comprehensive  record  for 
the  purposes  of  reference  is  not  what  this  book  professes  to 
give.  Occasionally  an  artist  from  one  of  these  countries 
becomes  as  familiar  to  us  as  are  our  own  painters.  Such  an 
one  was  the  Norwegian  painter  Fritz  Thaulow,  whose  works 
for  years  past  have  been  regularly  seen  in  our  own  exhibi- 
tions. He  was  the  master-painter  of  snow  and  of  reflec- 
tions in  running  water,  where  the  curves  due  to  movement 
add  beauty  of  form  to  exquisitely  lovely  variations  of 
colour.  The  Swedish  painter  Anders  Zorn,  who  has  so 
brilliantly  rendered  efi'ects  of  light  and  colour,  has  also 
become  well  known  outside  his  own  country.     To  say  more 


264  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

than  this,  without  saying  very  much  more,  about  those 
whom  we  may  call  our  kinsfolk  in  the  north,  would  be  to 
do  them  an  injustice. 

Turning  south,  we  find  Spain,  after  a  long  period  of 
stagnation,  producing  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  a  revolutionary  artist  of  extraordinary  power  in 
the  person  of  Francisco  Goya — a  necromancer  he  might  well 
be  styled.  Then  came  a  period  of  Classicism  and  Romance, 
such  as  we  have  seen  in  other  countries — even  those 
northern  ones  we  have  just  glanced  at  did  not  escape  it.  In 
1838  was  born  Mariano  Fortuny,  who,  after  studying  art  in 
Rome,  spent  several  months  in  Morocco,  a  visit  that  led  to 
his  painting  a  number  of  pictures  of  Eastern  life.  Then 
he  won  applause  for  the  works  with  which  his  name  is  now 
almost  exclusively  associated,  the  marvellously  executed 
pictures,  with  their  wealth  of  glittering  detail,  of  high-life 
in  Spain  in  the  previous  century. 

Fortuny,  who  died  in  1876,  had  many  imitators  in  his 
own  country  and  abroad.  There  was  ready  appreciation  of 
such  dexterous  and  superficially  brilliant  work.  His  methods 
were  applied  in  Spain  itself  not  merely  to  the  re-creating  of 
the  past,  but  to  the  delineating  of  the  present.  Rico, 
Madrazo,  Domingo,  and  Pradilla  are  among  those  who  have 
done  work  of  this  kind ;  while  other  painters,  and  some  of 
those  also  who  painted  in  Fortuny's  manner,  have  executed 
large  historical  pictures  in  the  manner  of  the  French 
Romanticists.  Of  such  are  Casado's  The  Bells  of  Huesca, 
Pradilla's  Surrender'  of  Granada,  1^92,  and  many  others. 
Such  work  as  this  has  lasted  over  from  an  earlier  time — 
and  may  yet  continue  ;  but  it  is  not  new.  Other  painters, 
such  as  Ignacio  Zuloaga,  La  Gandara,  Hermen  Anglada,  and 
Sorolla  y  Bastida,  have   been   caught  up  in   the   modern 


THK    r.AI.CONV 


IGNACIO   ZULOAGA 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  265 

movement.  Such  men  disport  themselves  at  times,  as  if 
with  the  joy  of  children  bathing  in  a  sunlit  sea,  in  light  and 
colour,  without  concerning  themselves  with  subject,  with 
doings  and  happenings  whether  important  or  trivial.  Indeed, 
we  have  sometimes  mere  play  of  brilliant  colour,  out  of 
which  it  is  with  the  utmost  difficulty  that  we  make  anything 
in  the  way  of  representation.  There  is  the  spirit  of  Goya  in 
the  picture  by  Zuloaga  here  reproduced,  but  the  manner  of 
its  painting  belongs  to  the  latest  phase  of  the  art. 

Italy  has  very  little  to  offer  that  is  to  our  purpose.  The 
modern  movements  in  art  have  originated  and  progressed  to 
the  north  of  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees  alike.  The  stamp 
of  Fortuny  has  been  deeply  impressed  on  Italian  painting, 
particularly  in  the  south,  where  climate,  surroundings,  and 
temperament  all  alike  invite  towards  colour,  verve,  and 
vivacity.  Italy,  of  course,  has  had  and  has  her  painters, 
many  painters,  of  religious,  historical,  and  genre  subjects 
and  of  landscape.  This  goes  without  saying.  But  Italian 
art  has  given  to  Europe  little  that  is  originative  or  inspiring, 
while  it  has  given  much  that  is  trivial  or  sensational.  The 
names  of  MorelH,  the  Neapolitan  painter  of  religious  sub- 
jects, and  of  Segantini,  an  imaginative  painter  of  the 
landscape  of  the  mountains,  who  is  well  known  outside  his 
own  country,  stand  out  prominently.  Into  his  pictures 
Segantini  knows  how  to  bring  a  Dantesque  element,  as  in 
The  Punishment  of  Lvacm^jy  now  in  the  Liverpool  Art 
Grallery,  where  those  who,  like  Dives,  once  had  their  good 
things,  now  float  in  the  clear,  cold,  biting  air  above  the 
frozen  snows. 

An  Italian  who  has  made  his  reputation  outside  his  o^vn 
country  is  Giovanni  Boldini,  who  was  born  at  Ferrara. 
When  quite  a  young  man  he  left  Italy  for  London,  and 


266  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

afterwards  settled  in  Paris.  With  extraordinary  and  varied 
skill,  and  a  rapid  choice  of  what  is  essential  to  his  purpose, 
which  is  like  an  artistic  shorthand,  he  has  painted  portraits 
of  fashionable  women,  and  of  children  and  scenes  of  life  in 
the  open  air. 

Spain  and  Italy,  we  find,  then,  do  not  detain  us  long.  It 
is  an  abrupt  change  at  once  to  cross  the  Atlantic.  But 
there  is  advantage  in  considering  the  art  of  the  United 
States  immediately  before  completing  our  account  of  that 
of  our  own  country. 

Painting  in  America  only  came  to  have  any  importance 
towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  after  John 
Singleton  Copley  and  Benjamin  West,  both  of  whom  w'ere 
Americans,  had  settled  in  England,  and  the  American  pupils 
of  the  latter  had  begun  to  return  to  their  own  country.  It 
was  only  to  be  expected  that  colonial  art  would  come  under 
the  influence  of  that  of  the  old  country ;  but  we  shall  find 
that  after  the  English  influence  declined,  the  art  of  France 
and  Germany  became  and  has  continued  to  be  of  paramount 
importance  for  America  down  to  the  present  day ;  indeed, 
one  of  the  difficulties  in  writing  of  American  painting  is  to 
know  how  to  deal  with  men  who,  having  received  their 
training  in  Germany  or  in  France,  have  settled  in  France  or 
in  this  country,  and,  when  they  have  settled  here,  have  be- 
come members  of  our  official  and  unofficial  art  institutions. 
English  influence  on  American  art  gi^adually  declined  after 
the  political  severance  of  the  colonies  from  the  mother 
country ;  American  artists  gradually  began  to  seek  instruc- 
tion elsewhere  than  in  England,  as  at  Diisseldorf,  Rome, 
and  Paris ;  and  the  art  of  America  is  now  in  the  greater 
part  a  branch  of  European  art,  with  the  influence  of  France 
largely  preponderating. 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  267 

Glancing  briefly  at  the  earlier  history  of  American  art,  we 
find  Copley  painting  portraits  and  subject-pictures  of  no 
little  merit,  among  the  best  of  the  latter  being  The  Death 
of  Chatham  and  The  Death  of  Major  Pierson.  West  also 
painted  historical  pictures,  and  created  a  revolution  in  such 
art  by  representing  the  soldiers  in  his  Death  of  Wolfe  in 
the  military  costume  of  the  time,  not  in  that  of  the  Greeks 
or  the  Romans.  He  became  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  and  numbers  of  young  Americans  studied  paint- 
ing under  him.  Of  these,  C.  R.  Leslie,  who,  though  born 
in  England,  was  of  American  parentage,  and  G.  S.  Newton, 
became  virtually  English  painters.  Stuart,  the  painter  of 
the  well-known  portrait  of  Washington,  spent  five  years  in 
Ireland  after  leaving  London,  and  then  returned  to  America. 
John  Trumbull,  who  was  also  one  of  West's  pupils,  painted 
portraits,  and  also  historical  pictures  after  the  manner  of 
those  of  West,  including  The  Battle  of  Butiker's  Hill  and 
The  Death  of  Genei^al  Montgomery.  He  also  executed  in 
the  Capitol  at  Washington  a  series  of  paintings  commemora- 
ting the  establishment  of  American  Independence. 

Of  the  painters  in  the  United  States  after  the  decline  of 
the  English  influence,  Chester  Harding,  who  had  prepared 
to  go  to  England  to  study,  was  persuaded,  for  family  reasons, 
not  to  do  so,  and  settled  in  Boston,  but  he  eventually  carried 
out  his  intention,  and  for  some  time  successfully  practised 
his  art  in  England ;  but  prosperity  declined,  and  he  returned 
to  America,  where  he  continued  to  work  as  a  portrait 
painter.  Charles  W.  Peale,  Neagle,  and  Inman  were  other 
artists  of  merit  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  century. 
Landscape  painting  was  pursued  by  Doughty,  Durand,  and 
Thomas  Cole.  They,  and  others  who  shortly  followed  them, 
were  close  literalists.     A  little  later  George  Inness  studied 


268  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

ill  Germany,  Paris,  and  Eome,  and  sought  to  get  beyond  the 
merely  imitative  stage  in  landscape  painting.  He  worked 
out  and  stated  his  own  philosophy  of  art.  "  The  purpose  of 
the  painter,"  he  said,  "is  simply  to  reproduce  in  other 
minds  the  impression  which  a  scene  has  made  upon  him. 
A  work  of  art  does  not  appeal  to  the  intellect.  It  does  not 
appeal  to  the  moral  sense.  Its  aim  is  not  to  instruct,  not  to 
edify,  but  to  awaken  our  emotion."  A  work  of  art,  he  said 
further,  should  awaken  only  a  single  emotion,  upon  the 
beauty  of  which  the  beauty  of  the  work  would  depend, 
•and  its  greatness  on  the  quality  and  force  of  the  emotion. 
Detail  should  be  elaborated  only  so  far  as  is  necessary  to 
reproduce  the  artist's  impression.  To  make  thought  clear 
and  to  maintain  unity  of  impression  are  the  artist's  aims. 
Meissonier's  detail  made  his  thought  clear.  To  some  minds 
Corot  lacked  objective  force,  but  Corot's  art  was  higher  than 
Meissonier's.  This  was  the  substance  of  the  American 
landscape  painter's  philosophy  of  art ;  and  it  is  a  very  good 
philosophy — except,  the  present  writer  must  say,  when  he 
opposes  the  awakening  of  an  emotion  to  appeal  to  the 
intellect  and  the  moral  sense.  These  water-tight  compart- 
ments need  to  be  carefully  used.  The  emotions  are  reached 
through  the  intellect,  and  morals  are  not  wholly  unemotional. 
In  his  art  Inness  passed  from  laborious  detail  to  fulness  of 
tone  and  breadth  of  handling,  and  later  to  greater  freedom 
of  touch.  Wyant  and  Martin  were  contemporaries  of  Inness. 
Portrait  painting  was  continued  by  Charles  Loring  Elliott, 
Healy,  Huntingdon,  and  others.  Among  the  subject-painters, 
Emanuel  Leutze,  the  painter  of  Washington  Crossing  the 
Delaware^  and  other  incidents  in  American  history,  was 
born  in  Wurtemberg,  but  his  family  emigrated  to  the  United 
States  while  he  was  an  infant.     For  twenty  years  of  his  life 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  269 

he  lived  at  Dusseldorf  and  painted  some  of  his  principal 
pictures  there,  so  that  he  was,  if  anything,  more  a  German 
than  an  American.  Such  was  the  condition  of  painting  in 
the  United  States  before  and  about  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

After  the  Civil  War,  young  Americans  desirous  of  study- 
ing art  abroad  went  to  Paris  rather  than  to  Germany  or 
England.  As  to  England,  the  painters  began  to  come  here 
not  to  learn  their  art,  but  to  practise  it  and  to  profit  by  it. 
Several  artists,  however,  among  whom  was  the  imaginative 
painter  Elihu  Vedder,  found  their  inspiration  in  Italy. 
Vedder,  indeed,  has  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in 
Rome.  He  has  painted  such  subjects  as  The  Questioner  of 
the  SphinXf  The  Cumcean  Sibyls  and  Marsyas,  and  executed 
illustrations  to  the  Ruhdiydt  of  Omar  Khayyam.  Among 
the  artists  who  went  to  Paris  were  Edward  Harrison  May 
and  William  Morris  Hunt,  the  former  being  English  by 
birth,  but  American  by  residence  from  the  age  of  ten  years. 
They  were  both  pupils  of  Couture.  May  was  an  academic 
painter  of  subject-pictures.  Mr.  Samuel  Isham,  in  his 
book  on  American  painting,  can  only  say  of  him  that  he 
"should  probably  be  considered  an  American  artist,  but 
from  his  work  he  might  have  been  a  Frenchman,  or  even  a 
German."  Hunt  found  his  way  from  Couture  to  Millet, 
spenduig  two  or  three  years  at  Barbizon,  and  then  returned 
to  America  and  painted  portraits,  subject-pictures,  and  land- 
scapes. Another  young  American — by  birth,  though  not 
by  parentage — John  La  Farge,  was  under  Couture,  though 
only  for  a  short  time.  He  also  studied  the  old  masters  in 
Munich  and  Dresden,  and  in  England  made  acquaintance 
with  the  works  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites.  After  his  return 
to  America  he  began  to  study  law,  for  art  had  not  been 


270  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

thought  of  as  a  profession.  Hunt,  however,  persuaded  him 
to  devote  himself  entirely  to  art.  He  executed  mural 
paintings  for  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  and  the  Church  of 
the  Ascension,  New  York,  as  well  as  many  designs  for 
stained  glass ;  and  he  also  painted  easel-pictures.  He  was  a 
fine  colourist,  and  his  religious  subjects  are  treated  with 
dignity  and  considerable  depth  of  feeling.  Along  with  La 
Farge  should  be  mentioned  Francis  Lathrop,  who,  after 
studying  at  Dresden,  went  to  London,  where  Whistler 
introduced  him  to  Madox  Brown,  with  whom  he  worked. 
This  brought  him  into  contact  with  the  Burne-Jones  and 
Morris  group,  and  their  influence  is  to  be  seen  in  his  art. 
He  assisted  La  Farge  in  his  decorative  work ;  and  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  associations  of  the  two  American  artists  are  an 
interesting  exception  to  the  general  lack  of  English  in- 
fluence. 

Winslow  Homer  is  a  versatile  painter  of  subject-pictures 
and  landscapes,  whose  distinct  merit  in  realistic  works  is 
the  more  interesting  as  he  received  no  foreign  training. 

It  would  be  time  now  to  say  something  about  Wliistler 
and  his  art  were  it  not  that,  after  mere  recognition  here  of 
his  having  been  an  American,  I  purpose  to  consider  his  life 
and  work  in  the  next  chapter,  which  will  deal  with  English 
painting.  For,  although  an  American,  he  was  wholly  trained 
in  Paris,  and  did  his  most  important  work  in  England ;  and 
it  was  here  that  his  influence  was  most  strongly  exercised, 
here  that  he  made  his  friends — and  his  enemies.  In  the 
same  way  such  artists  as  F.  D.  Millet,  E.  A.  Abbey,  and 
even  Sargent,  though  Americans  by  birth,  can  no  more  be 
separated  from  English  art  than  West  or  Copley ;  but  while 
this  has  to  be  said,  the  fact  that  they  are  Americans  has  not 
merely  to  be  admitted,  but  proclaimed.     And  it  may  be 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  271 

pointed  out  also,  that  to  take  them  along  with  our  own 
painters  is  not  to  say  that  they  have  learned  their  work 
here,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  have  so  influenced  our 
own  art  as  to  make  a  knowledge  of  their  connexion  with  it 
indispensable  to  its  understanding. 

Many  American  artists  have  also  settled  in  Paris.  They 
are  not  distinctively  or  even  largely  American  as  respects 
their  art,  in  which  they  have  been  trained  in  Europe.  We 
haA'e  already  seen  that  Miss  Mary  Cassatt,  the  American 
pupil  of  Degas,  has  made  Paris  her  home ;  and  that  only 
the  sentiment  of  her  pictures,  and  the  people  who  have  sat 
for  them,  not  her  technique,  suggest  that  she  is  not  a  French- 
woman. The  salons  are  open  to  artists  of  all  nationalities, 
and  foreigners  find  that  they  can  as  successfully  practise 
their  art  in  Paris  as  in  their  own  countries.  Americans 
obtain  a  clientele  in  Paris,  and  then  fear  to  take  the  risk  of 
starting  anew  either  at  home  or  in  London,  although  they 
would  then  be  among  their  own  kin.  Thus,  many  Ameri- 
cans by  birth  are  in  art  the  children  of  Manet,  Monet, 
Bastien-Lepage,  Carolus  Duran,  or — as,  in  art,  the  child 
may  have  many  parents — of  more  than  one  French  painter, 
and  they  are  also  resident  in  France  though  they  may  not 
become  French  by  residence.  At  the  same  time,  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  many  American  painters  have  learned 
their  art  in  Munich  or  Diisseldorf  or  elsewhere,  if  also  they 
owe  something  to  Paris. 

Julius  L.  Stewart  is  one  of  the  painters  who  has  made 
Paris  his  home.  After  being  under  Zama^ois,  one  of 
Fortuny's  pupils,  he  went  to  G^rome.  In  Tlie  Hunt  Ball 
and  other  pictures  he  shows  himself  to  be  French  in  tech- 
nique and  American,  or  Anglo-Saxon,  or  Scotch,  or  whatever 
may  be  the  race  or  blend  of  races,  in  the  characterisation  of 


272  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  dancers.  William  L.  Dannatt  first  went  to  Munich  and 
then  to  Munkacsy  in  Paris.  He  has  painted  Spanish  sub- 
jects with  great  vigour  and  vivacity,  owing  much  to  Manet 
and  Degas,  as  well  as  to  his  actual  teachers.  Julian  Story, 
Walter  McEwen,  J.  Ridgeway  Knight,  and  Walter  Gay 
should  also  be  mentioned.  McEwen  and  George  Hitchcock 
and  Gari  Melchers  have  painted  in  Holland.  Alexander 
Harrison,  a  pupil  of  G^rome,  but  owing  more  to  Bastien- 
Lepage  and  the  Impressionists,  became  a  painter  of  the  sea, 
and  in  his  work  the  realisation  of  light,  air,  and  movement 
does  not  mean  the  neglect  of  form.  Frederick  A.  Bridgman 
and  Edwin  Lord  Weeks  are  devotees  of  the  splendour  of 
the  East. 

Such  are  some  of  the  American  artists  who  have  made 
Paris  their  home,  or  at  least  their  head-quarters.  Once 
more,  let  it  be  said,    comprehensive  list-making  is  not  our 


Of  the  American  painters  who  studied  at  Munich, 
F.  Duveneck  and  William  M.  Chase  are  the  most  promi- 
nent ;  the  latter,  departing  from  the  heavy  painting  of  the 
Munich  school,  under  the  influence  of  the  work  of  Velas- 
quez and  the  direct  influence  of  Whistler,  has  taken  a  high 
place  among  American  artists,  painting  in  various  mediums, 
and  with  great  variety  of  treatment ;  and  he  has  also 
covered  a  wide  range  of  subjects.  It  might  almost  be  said, 
indeed,  that  he  has  painted  everything ;  and  always  his 
colour  is  liuninous,  and  in  later  years  his  work  has  become 
remarkably  fine  also  in  tone. 

Wyatt  Eaton  studied  under  Leutze  in  DUsseldorf,  then 
under  G^rome  ;  lastly,  he  came  under  the  influence  of  Millet 
and  Bastien-Lepage,  and  his  pictures  of  country  life  have 
often  called  up  the  name  of  the  Barbizon  master.     Other 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER   COUNTRIES  273 

pupils  of  G^rome  were  J.  Alden  Weir  and  Will  H.  Low. 
They  also,  like  Eaton,  admired  Millet.  Weir,  however, 
adopted  methods  akin  to  those  of  the  Impressionists,  and 
applied  them  to  portraiture  and  landscape,  while  Low,  after 
painting  portraits  in  the  manner  of  Carolus  Duran,  returned 
to  America  to  paint  figure-pictures  in  the  Impressionist 
manner,  and  then  to  betake  himself  to  classical  subjects. 

American  figure-painting  has  become  exceedingly  varied, 
both  in  subject  and  treatment.  The  Classical  ideal  and  the 
Romantic  ideal  have  both  been  pursued.  In  real  life, 
the  elegant  society  lady,  mother  and  child,  children  of  all 
ages  and  degrees,  and  genre  subjects  have  all  been  treated  by 
numerous  painters. 

Bryson  Burroughs  has  used  the  powers  of  an  admirable 
draughtsman  and  true  colourist  to  re-tell  the  myths  of  the 
classical  and  the  northern  lands,  as  well  as  for  subjects 
drawn  from  real  life;  while  A.  B.  Davies  has  created  a 
romantic  world  of  his  own.  Kenyon  Cox,  a  pupil  of  G^r6me 
and  Carolus  Duran,  has  painted  the  nude  and  the  draped 
figure  and  put  them  to  the  service  of  allegory.  He  also  is 
a  notable  colourist.  Thomas  W.  Dewing  is  the  painter  of 
elegant  women,  who  are  splendid  creatures,  graceful  in 
movement  or  repose,  beautifully  dressed,  surroimded  with 
every  luxury,  in  the  best  of  taste.  Dewing  has  set  them 
before  us  with  delicate,  illusive  art,  in  which  he  has  added 
much  to  what  he  learned  in  Paris  under  Boulanger  and 
Lef^bvre.  To  subtle  play  of  light  and  atmosphere  is  due 
no  small  part  of  the  beauty  of  his  pictures.  Other  painters 
have  singled  out  the  charms  of  maidenhood;  of  such  are 
Thayer,  Benson,  Reid,  and  others.  The  family  groups, 
mothers  and  their  children,  of  G.  De  Forest  Brush,  may 
perhaps  be  best  described  as  Madonnas  of  daily  life.     They 


274  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

have  the  best  purity — that  of  the  home.  Horatio  AValker 
and  Robert  Blum  stand  high  among  the  genre  painters,  of 
whom  there  are  many,  and  by  whom  the  preference  has 
been  given,  perhaps,  to  foreign  subjects,  though  American 
life  has  not  been  neglected.  It  is  said,  however,  that  the 
American  city-dweller  does  not  care  for  genre  pictures  deal- 
ing with  familiar  scenes. 

The  greatest  living  American  portrait  painter,  Sargent, 
whose  work  we  are  to  consider  later,  has  practically  sepa- 
rated himself  from  his  country,  and  foreign  painters  who 
have  gone  over  to  America  have  interfered  with  the  growth 
of  native  portrait  painting,  beyond  which,  of  course,  the 
travelling  American  can  choose  from  the  widest  possible 
area  who  shall  paint  himself  and  his  wife  and  his  daughters. 
Many  of  the  painters  already  noticed  have,  of  course, 
painted  portraits.  Among  those  whose  names  are  more 
closely  associated  with  this  branch  of  art  is  J.  W.  Alex- 
ander, who  by  skilfully  calculated  breadth  of  treatment  in 
all  but  the  face  rivets  the  attention  on  a  subtle  interpreta- 
tion of  personality.  Irving  R.  Wiles  allows  his  canvas  to  be 
more  generally  interesting,  yet  the  face  is  still  the  centre  of 
interest.  Wilton  Lockwood's  portraits  are  close  studies  of 
character,  with  a  convincing  air  of  reality,  due  to  subtle 
modelling  and  suggestion  of  atmosphere. 

Numerous  American  painters  have  devoted  themselves  to 
the  landscape  of  their  own  country,  a  country  which  is  half 
a  continent,  and  is  correspondingly  varied  in  climate  and  in 
scene.  To  enumerate  any  considerable  number  of  them 
would  be  impossible.  Some  general  characteristics  of  recent 
American  landscape  painting  may,  however,  be  mentioned, 
and  a  few  names  cited  to  illustrate  them. 

These  painters^^have  not  gone  to  nature  as  novices  to 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  275 

learn  on  the  spot  a  brand-new  language  of  interpretation. 
The  earlier  painters,  many  of  them,  had  done  little  more 
than  this.  But  the  later  ones  know  all  about  their  pre- 
decessors in  the  art.  They  have  only  to  adapt  a  language 
to  their  own  need,  not  to  create  one.  They  know  all  about 
the  German  and  Dutch  painters,  about  the  Barbizon  group 
and  the  Impressionists;  and  they  have  not  failed  to  use 
their  knowledge.  Mr.  Charles  H.  Cafiin,  in  American 
Masters  of  Painting,  says  that  the  work  of  some  of  the 
marine  and  landscape  painters  is  what  is  most  distinctively 
American  in  his  country's  art,  and  that  the  foreigner 
"would  be  least  likely  in  these  to  detect  the  influence  of 
Europe."  These  painters,  he  says,  "like  most  other  true 
students  of  nature,  have  found,  each  for  himself,  their  own 
necessary  language  of  expression."  This  may  well  be  true, 
and  yet  the  language  be  an  American  version  of  some  other 
tongue.  It  is  at  the  beginning  of  an  appreciation  of  the 
landscape  painter  D  wight  W.  Tryon  that  Mr.  Caffin  thus 
writes  of  the  originality  of  his  fellow-countrymen's  work; 
and  Tryon  was  a  pupil  of  Daubigny,  and  was  not  un- 
influenced by  the  Impressionists,  Yet  it  is  true  that  Tryon 
does  speak  his  own  language.  He  expresses,  in  his  own 
way,  his  own  emotion,  not  that  of  Daubigny  or  Monet,  or 
a  mere  compound  of  both.  II.  W.  Ranger,  however,  has 
evidently  seen  nature  through  the  eyes  of  Corot;  and  we 
can  tell  at  a  glance  that  Childe  Hassam  could  not  have 
painted  his  street  scenes,  his  interiors,  and  his  landscajjes 
as  he  has  done  had  not  Monet  painted  before  him.  Mr. 
Isham,  in  his  book  already  referred  to,  mentions  the  tonal 
quality  in  much  American  landscape,  and  attributes  it  to 
study  of  the  works  of  Barbizon  masters  and  other  foreign 
painters.     At  the  same  time  he  insists,  like  Mr.  Caffin,  that 


276  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  American  painters  express  their  own  emotions.  Only  a 
slight  acquaintance  with  American  landscape  painting  is 
needed  to  induce  acceptance  of  the  judgment  of  these 
writers,  with  abundant  opportunity  for  studying  the  art 
on  the  spot,  that  a  really  living  school  of  landscape  painting 
is  developing  in  America.  It  has  borrowed,  but  borrowing 
that  is  assimilation  of  what,  when  once  discovered,  is  valid 
everywhere  and  for  all,  is  true  originality.  The  scenery  of 
the  United  States — one  would  rather  say  nature  in  the 
United  States — is  being  interpreted  by  men  of  true  feeling, 
who  in  this,  as  men  do  in  all  things,  profit  by  the  ex- 
perience of  those  who  have  done  the  same  thing  before 
them.  At  this  we  must  leave  an  interesting  side  of 
American  art.  What  more  could  be  said,  with  profit  to 
the  reader,  would  both  go  beyond  our  limits  of  space  and 
be  but  statement  at  second-hand  of  a  perhaps  not  legitimate 
kind. 

One  interesting  feature  of  painting  in  America  is  the 
growing  encouragement  of  mural  painting,  and  the  bringing 
into  relation  with  architecture  of  all  the  other  arts  and 
crafts.  This  encouragement  has  been  given  both  by  public 
bodies  and  by  private  individuals,  and  already  has  become 
quite  considerable  in  amount.  Such  work  has  the  greatest 
value  in  itself ;  and  it  has  the  indirect  effect  of  doing  much 
towards  the  formation  of  a  national  school  of  painting. 

It  is  perhaps  too  early  yet  to  say  that  there  is  such  a 
school  in  America.  It  seems  more  correct  to  speak  of 
painting  by  Americans  than  of  American  painting.  Yet 
this  is  not  said  as  a  reproach,  but  as  a  prophecy.  The 
painting  by  Americans  is  so  good,  as  even  those  who  have 
only  seen  it  in  Europe  know  well :  so  good  in  purely 
artistic  quality,  and  so  clear  and  sympathetic  in  its  inter- 


PAINTING  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES  277 

pretation  of  life  and  nature,  that  a  school,  or  more  than  one 
school,  of  painting  must  surely  be  developed  to  give  ex- 
pression, in  their  own  land,  to  the  emotions  of  the  people 
of  America.  As  yet,  for  the  most  jDart,  individual  Americans 
are  merely  giving  expression  to  their  individual  emotions, 
and  many  of  them  are  content — or  find  it  pays  better — to 
do  this  abroad  rather  than  at  home.  This  is  but  a  temporary 
condition.  Even  now  one  hesitates  not  to  use  the  expres- 
sion American  painting — it  has  been  used  here,  indeed, 
repeatedly.  And  the  cosmopolitan  nature  of  the  American 
population  cannot  in  the  end  prevent  those  who  are  united 
by  political  ties  and  by  living  in  the  same,  though  a  wide, 
land,  from  having  an  art  which  shall  be  truly  national. 

With  these  brief  notes  about  America  ends  our  survey  of 
the  progress  of  painting  in  countries  other  than  our  own. 
To  our  own  country  we  must  now  return. 


CHAPTER   VII 

PAINTING   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN 

TT  remains  for  us  now  to  follow  the  general  course  of 
-■-  painting  in  our  own  country  outside  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
movement.  We  have  isolated  that  movement,  and  en- 
deavoured to  grasp  its  by  no  means  simple  character,  be- 
cause it  did  so  much  during  the  half -century  we  have 
in  review  to  free  our  art  from  the  heavy  weight  of 
tradition.  We  have  also  compared  it  with  the  almost 
contemporary  movement  in  France,  by  which  there  also 
art  obtained  greater  freedom.  Then  we  have  left  for  a  time 
the  art  of  our  own  country  and  briefly  surveyed  the  pro- 
gress of  painting  in  France  and  elsewhere,  because  towards 
the  end  of  the  century  painting  here  was  and  still  is  power- 
fully affected  by  the  developments  taking  place  abroad. 

English  painting  until  quite  recently  has  been  little 
affected  by  contemporary  art  in  other  countries.  It  has 
been  a  vigorous  national  development,  guided,  where  it  has 
received  guidance  from  without,  by  the  study  of  the  older 
European  schools  of  painting.  This  is  why  it  has  been 
possible  for  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  to  say  that  England  is  the 
only  country  outside  France  that  possesses  a  distinctly 
national  school  of  painting.  He  says  that  this  is  only 
true  of  our  art  in  the  last  century,  that  in  the  eighteenth 
century  our  aesthetics  were  those  of  the  rest  of  Europe, 
that  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough  were  great  masters,  but 

278 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  279 

that  thieir  work  was  merely  eighteenth-century  painting,  not 
English  painting.  We  may  dispute  this  dictum,  saying  that 
nowhere  else  was  there  such  subtlety  both  of  colour  and 
interpretation  of  character  as  in  the  work  of  the  English 
portrait  painters  of  that  time.  Turner  and  Constable,  and 
our  other  landscape  painters,  he  credits  with  striking  a  new 
and  powerful  note  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  but  he  goes  on  to  say  that  Turner  no  more  belonged 
to  one  portion  of  the  globe  than  a  comet  to  one  region  of 
the  sky,  and  that  he  could  not  be  imitated  either  at  home 
or  abroad.  Yet  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  himself  admits  the 
influence  of  Turner  on  the  French  Impressionists,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  they  themselves  are  also  glad  to  recognise. 
Of  Constable  he  says  that  his  glory  is  rather  to  have 
initiated  a  new  movement  in  Europe  than  his  good  fortune 
to  have  founded  a  national  art  in  his  native  land.  This  is 
a  very  remarkable  statement.  "We  cannot  permit  ourselves 
thus  to  be  robbed  of  our  landscape  paintmg.  There  was  no 
need  for  Constable  to  found  a  national  art,  nor  for  Turner 
to  be  imitated  if  such  an  art  were  to  exist;  for,  besides 
these  two  men,  there  were  the  Cromes,  Vincent,  Stark, 
Cotman,  and  the  other  Norwich  painters,  and  then  David 
Cox,  De  Wint,  and  others,  who  painted  chiefly  in  water- 
colour.  Here  was  surely  abundant  vitality  of  varied 
character,  sufficient  to  constitute  a  national  school,  and 
capable,  as  we  have  seen  and  as  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  admits, 
of  profoundly  modifying  the  art  of  France,  and  through 
France  that  of  other  countries. 

The  Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  in  which  an  awakening 
from  stagnation  that  must  in  any  event  have  come  was 
hastened  by  a  few  young  painters  who  persistently  shook 
the   academic   sleepers,   also   owed  nothing  to  foreign   in- 


28o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

fluence.  The  simple  creed  of  Holraan  Hunt  and  Millais 
was  fidelity  to  facts,  and  in  formulating  their  creed  they 
owed  nothing  to  Madox  Brown  and  whatever  impetus  to- 
wards realism  he  may  have  received  in  the  studio  of  Haron 
Wappers.  Indeed,  they  showed  him  the  way  to  the  thorough- 
going realism  that  became  the  mark  of  one  side  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  movement.  Nor  did  Rossetti  and  those  who 
followed  him  owe  anything  to  contemporary  Romanticism 
abroad,  unless  we  can  say  that,  through  Madox  Brown, 
Rossetti  came  to  some  extent,  at  second-hand,  under  the 
influence  of  the  German  Nazarenes.  Anyhow,  the  really 
potent  influence  under  which  he  came  was  that  of  the 
Italian  painters  who  preceded  Raphael,  and  this  was  even 
truer  still  of  Burne- Jones,  who  repeatedly  studied  their 
works  in  Italy  itself,  and  expressed  his  growing  admiration 
for  them. 

English  painting,  then,  went  its  way,  learning  from  the 
past,  but  comparatively  heedless  of  what  was  being  done 
elsewhere  in  the  present.  This  attitude,  however,  has 
recently  been  changed,  as  we  shall  shortly  see.  But  first 
we  must  turn  to  the  work  of  the  painters  who  have  been 
little  or  at  all  influenced  either  by  the  Pre-Raphaelite  move- 
ment or  by  the  more  recent  developments  of  art  abroad. 
In  doing  this  we  need  do  no  more  than  refer  to  those 
painters  who  lived  and  worked  during  the  latter  half  of  the 
century,  but  did  not  break  any  fresh  ground. 

One  painter,  however,  Ave  may  name,  who  actually  died 
before  the  mid-century,  William  J.  Miiller,  whose  work, 
though  he  received  his  only  art-training  from  J.  B.  Pyne,  is 
much  more  closely  allied  to  that  of  Constable  than  to  that 
of  his  teacher.  This  may  be  because  he  soon  forsook  all 
tuition  except  that  of  nature.     He  is  mentioned  here  be- 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  281 

cause,  several  years  before  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement 
was  projected,  he  wrote :  *'  I  paint  in  oil  on  the  spot ;  in 
deed,  I  am  more  than  ever  convinced  of  the  aciual  necessitij 
of  looking  at  Nature  with  a  much  more  observant  eye  than 
the  most  of  young  artists  do,  and  in  particular  at  skies ; 
these  are  generally  neglected."  This  is  interesting,  as  show- 
ing that  the  Pre-Raphaelites  were  not  alone  in  their  con- 
viction of  the  need  for  a  return  to  nature.  Miiller's  idea  of 
the  return  was,  however,  different  from  tlieii*s.  He  was  no 
devotee  of  elaborate  detail.  I  have  already  referred  to  the 
note  on  the  back  of  his  Eel-hucks  at  Goring,  to  the  effect 
that  it  was  left  for  some  fool  to  finish  and  ruin. 

Another  painter,  older  than  Miiller,  but  who  survived  him 
— living,  indeed,  until  1876 — John  Frederick  Lewis,  must 
be  mentioned  here  because  he,  if  anything,  anticipated  the 
realistic  side  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement.  Ruskin 
said  that  he  **  worked  with  the  sternest  precision  twenty 
years  before  Pre-Raphaelitism  had  ever  been  heard  of; 
pursued  calmly  the  same  principles,  developed  by  himself 
for  himself,  through  years  of  lonely  labour  in  Syria."  He 
began  to  paint  with  very  much  more  minuteness  in  detail 
just  about  the  time  that  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  were 
determining  to  adopt  the  same  method ;  but  as  he  was  away 
in  the  East  from  1843  for  a  period  of  eight  years,  there 
was  no  chance  of  his  getting  into  touch  mth  them.  Per- 
haps because  he  came  gradually  to  render  detail  more  faith- 
fully, and  also  because  he  painted  in  the  brilliant  sunlight 
of  an  eastern  clime,  the  detail  is  less  obtrusive  in  his  Avork 
than  in  that  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  there  is  more  sense  of 
light  and  atmosphere  and  more  unity  of  design.  What 
with  the  Pre-Raphaelites  was  revolution,  a  turning  away 
from  the  methods  they  had  previously  adopted,  was  with 


282  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Lewis  an  evolution,  an  addition  of  greater  detail  without 
essentially  changing  the  character  of  his  work,  so  that 
Redgrave,  who  calls  the  work  of  the  Pre  -  Raphaelites 
laborious  idling,  can  say  of  Lewis  that  "there  is  not  one 
touch  too  much  or  one  thrown  away  in  his  work,  and  that 
the  result  is  always  very  perfect,  conveying  an  impression  of 
power  without  too  great  a  sense  of  labour." 

So  much  by  way  of  showing  that  English  art  at  the  mid- 
century  would  not  have  wholly  lost  touch  with  nature  but 
for  the  organised  effort  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brethren. 
We  can  now  proceed  to  consider  what  other  progress  was 
made  after  the  mid-century,  or,  in  some  respects,  it  might 
be  said,  how  the  art  marked  time.  What,  for  example,  to 
turn  abruptly  from  Realism  to  Classicism,  shall  we  account 
the  life-work  of  Frederick,  Lord  Leigh  ton,  who  was  the 
most  conspicuous  representative  of  classical  art  in  England 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  ^  Was  it 
advance,  halt,  or  retrogression  ? 

His  first  picture  was  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy  in 
1855,  and  he  died,  President  of  the  Academy  and  a  peer  of 
the  realm,  in  1896.  He  was  born  in  1830  at  Scarborough, 
where  his  father  practised  as  a  doctor.  He  early  showed 
inclination  and  capacity  for  art,  and  his,  father,  acting  on 
the  advice  of  Hiram  Powers,  the  American  sculptor,  decided 
that  an  artist  the  boy  should  be.  He  taught  him  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  also  anatomy.  Being  taken  to  live  abroad  at  an 
early  age  on  account  of  his  mother's  health,  he  was  thirty 
years  of  age  before  he  returned  to  live  in  England.  Before 
he  entered  on  his  teens  he  could  speak  French,  Italian,  and 
German;  and  subsequently  he  added  Spanish  to  the  list. 
He  studied  in  Rome,  Dresden,  Berlin,  Frankfort,  and 
Brussels.     He  was  thus  a  child  of  the  academies  and  the 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  283 

galleries.  He  travelled  also  both  in  many  countries  in 
Europe  and  in  the  near  East.  In  any  event,  he  was  prob- 
ably unsuited  by  temperament  to  be  either  a  pioneer  or  a 
revolutionary;  and  the  study  of  so  many  schools  of  art 
might  well  have  sapped  the  energy  of  one  gifted  with 
much  greater  originative  powers.  As  it  was,  Leighton  did 
but  develop  an  eclectic  style  devoid  of  intensity  both  in  the 
treatment  of  the  subject  and  in  purely  sesthetic  qualities. 
He  became  highly  accomplished  in  both  painting  and 
sculpture ;  but  it  is  the  accomplishment  that  impresses  us ; 
there  is  nothing  deeper  to  make  us  forget  it.  This  is  even 
more  true,  perhaps,  of  his  painting  than  of  his  sculpture ; 
and  it  is  with  the  former  we  are  concerned  here. 

He  declared  his  artistic  faith  in  the  addresses  that  he 
delivered  as  President  of  the  Royal  Academy.  He  said 
that  while  the  ethos  of  the  painter  was  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance for  his  work,  art  was  in  its  nature  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  morality,  and  that  the  loftiest  moral  purport 
could  add  no  jot  or  tittle  to  the  merits  of  a  work  of  art  as 
such.  This  we  will  say  is  true ;  it  is  even  obvious ;  just  as 
an  ungrammatical  sentence  is  such  even  if  it  enunciate  a 
great  truth.  We  may  even  say  that  a  picture  is  less  likely 
to  be  beautiful  than  otherwise  it  might  be  if  the  painter  be 
seeking  to  give  some  rather  dry,  unemotional  instruction. 
But  what  if  he  be  moved  by  passionate  enthusiasm  for 
something  nobly  human?  Such  enthusiasm  surely  cannot 
fail  to  change,  if  it  do  not  increase,  the  purely  artistic 
merit  of  his  work.  There  is  a  difference  between  passionate 
expression  and  emotionless  expression.  Are  we  to  say  that 
this  relates  to  the  ethos  of  the  painter,  and  that  moral 
purport  is  something  diflferent  from  this?  If  so,  Lord 
Leighton's  dictum  covers  very  little  ground,  and  leaves 


284  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

much  more  to  be  said.  But  tliere  is  moral  purport  that 
springs  from  deep  emotion,  that  is  the  form  such  emotion 
takes,  and  this  does  certainly  influence  the  aesthetic 
character  of  an  artist's  work.  Given,  if  it  may  be  put 
thus,  equal  aesthetic  gift  in  two  artists,  but  a  difference  in 
enthusiasm  with  regard  to  the  subjects  of  their  art,  there 
will  be  a  more  intense  beauty  in  the  work  of  the  more 
enthusiastic  artist  than  in  that  of  the  other.  Thus  Leighton 
himself  said:  "Believe  me,  whatever  of  dignity,  whatever 
of  strength  we  have  within  us  will  dignify  and  will  make 
strong  the  work  of  our  hands ;  whatever  littleness  degrades 
our  spirit  will  lessen  them  and  drag  them  down.  Whatever 
noble  fire  is  in  our  hearts  will  burn  also  in  our  work ;  what- 
ever purity  is  ours  will  chasten  and  exalt  it." 

Leighton's  own  works  look  like  those  of  a  man  who  has 
somewhat  coldly  selected  their  subjects,  not  like  those  of  one 
who  has  had  to  paint  them,  because  while  he  mused  the  fire 
burned  within  him.  Even  when  he  has  selected  his  subjects 
he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  carried  away  by  them.  His 
works  have  the  look  of  deliberate  arrangement;  they  are 
wholly  lacking  in  spontaneity.  We  can  hardly  believe  in 
the  grief  of  his  Hero,  her  attitude  is  so  exactly  what 
would  be  chosen  for  theatrical  effect.  Always  Leighton 
seems  to  approach  his  subject  from  the  outside,  not  from 
within.  Does  not  the  following  passage  in  one  of  his 
Academy  addresses  suggest  that  this  was  so :  "  You  will 
find  that  through  the  Association  of  Ideas,  lines  and  forms 
and  combinations  of  lines  and  forms,  colours  and  combina- 
tions of  colours,  have  acquired  a  distinct  expressional  signifi- 
cance, and,  so  to  speak,  have  an  ethos  of  their  own,  and 
will  convey  in  the  one  province  notions  of  strength,  of 
repose,  of  solidity,  of  flowing  motion,  and  of  life;  in  the 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  285 

other,  sensations  of  joy  or  sadness,  of  heat  or  cold,  of 
languor  or  of  health  % "  There  is  an  air  of  rule  and  recipe 
about  this  passage.  It  speaks  of  much  study  in  the  galleries 
and  museums  rather  than  of  the  creative  imagination  that 
makes  its  own  rules.  This  kind  of  analysis  is  common  in 
his  addresses;  and  it  has  a  marked  bearing  on  his  art, 
between  which  and  nature  and  life  comes  ever  a  veil  com- 
posed of  conventions  that  he  has  gathered  for  himself  out 
of  the  works  of  the  great  masters  of  the  past.  Leighton 
was  a  learned,  an  academic,  an  eclectic  artist ;  which  means 
also  that  he  was  decorous  and  dull. 

His  first  exhibited  picture,  Cimdbue^s  Madonna  carried 
throtigh  Florence^  might  by  the  choice  of  subject  have 
seemed  to  promise  that  the  painter  would  not  merely  mark 
time  in  his  art.  In  the  picture  Cimabue  is  seen  leading  by 
the  hand  Giotto,  the  pupil  who  was  destined  to  escape  from 
the  Byzantine  conventions  and  become  a  naturalist  painter. 
No  more  rapid  advance  in  art  has  surely  ever  been  made 
than  that  which  the  works  of  Giotto  show  when  compared 
with  those  of  Cimabue.  The  subject  of  Leighton's  picture 
would  almost  have  entitled  him  to  be  considered  a  Romantic 
painter,  and  it  was  pleasant  in  colour  and  piquant  in 
incident.  Rossetti  thought  the  youth  who  painted  it  might 
do  good  things  if  only  he  could  lose  what  was  French  in  his 
work  by  coming  to  England.  Leighton,  however,  went  to 
Paris,  and  remained  there  for  several  years.  This,  let  ns 
recollect,  was  the  Paris  in  which  Ingres  and  Delacroix  were 
still  living;  in  which  painters  like  Millet  and  Corot  were 
held  of  little  account,  and  in  which  the  stirrings  of  Im- 
pressionism had  not  yet  been  felt.  There  was  nothing  here 
to  inspire  Leighton  so  that  he  would  eventually  return  to 
England,  if  not  to  join  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  yet  at  least  to 


286  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

move  forward  alongside  them  on  a  way  of  liis  own.  He 
remained  an  eclectic  to  the  end  of  his  days.  Never  again, 
I  think,  did  he  paint  anything  so  delightfully,  naturally 
human  as  his  Cimabue  and  Giotto  walking  along  hand  in 
hand.  Ever  afterwards  the  stylist  in  him  seemed  to  freeze 
up  his  emotions.  His  subject-pictures  are  excellent  tableaux, 
but  they  are  not  the  thing  itself.  Hercules  in  his  picture  is 
not  wrestling  with  Death,  he  is  only  standing  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  wrestler ;  and  so  it  is  all  through  Leighton's  work  : 
there  are  lines  and  colours  and  combinations  of  them  by 
which  we  know  he  has  meant  to  represent  human  beings  as 
doing  certain  things,  or  as  being  in  certain  states  of  feeling, 
but  he  has  not  been  able  to  endue  these  forms  with  active, 
passionate  life. 

His  colour  is  no  more  than  a  pleasant  arrangement  of 
various  hues  and  shades ;  it  never  fuses  into  a  whole,  and 
comes  upon  the  eye  like  organ-music  on  the  ear.  The  small 
sketches  for  his  large  pictures  often  have  this  latter  quality. 
Always  while  looking  at  the  Captive  Andromache^  in  which 
the  colour  of  the  maidens'  dress  is  varied  as  a  skilful 
draper's  assistant  might  vary  colours  in  the  window,  I  re- 
call a  small  oil-sketch  for  the  picture,  the  rich  glow  of  which 
has  left  an  indelible  impression  on  the  brain. 

What  strikes  one  most  in  Leighton's  works  is  their 
decorative  quality.  Such  pictures  as  The  Daphnephoria 
and  Captive  Andromache  would  be  better  as  panels  enclosed 
in  an  architectural  setting  than  as  framed  pictures.  A  hall 
decorated  by  Leighton  would  be  exceedingly  restful.  The 
pictures  would  not  excite  us ;  they  would  gently  remind  us 
of  myths  and  legends,  and  set  us  quietly  thinking.  The 
South  Kensington  lunettes  and  the  panel  he  did  for  the 
Royal  Exchange,  London,  show  how  admirably  his  work 


THE   BATH   OF  PSYCHE  LEIGHTON 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  287 

was  adapted  for  this  purpose.  The  panels  may  not  be  the 
best  of  their  kind,  but  Leighton's  art  is  best  suited  to  that 
kind  of  picture.  There  was  this  quality  in  the  collection 
of  his  life-work  at  Burlington  House ;  the  rooms  were  rest- 
ful. It  was  otherwise  with  the  Millais  exhibition,  in  which 
not  only  were  there  strong  contrasts  in  the  colour-schemes 
of  different  pictures,  so  that  one  had  fresh  sensations  at 
nearly  every  step,  but  the  greater  spontaneity  and  more 
telling  dramatic  interest  of  the  pictures  constantly  challenged 
alert  attention.  The  strenuous  rarely  enters  into  Leighton's 
pictures.  His  Greek  girls  play  at  ball  in  garments  that 
must  greatly  impede  their  movements.  And  the  smooth 
finish  of  his  painting  and  the  waxen  complexions  of  the 
figures  in  the  pictures  add  to  the  feeling  of  almost  anajmic 
listlessness.  Above  all  things  no  zeal,  these  people  say  to 
us.     Their  mission  is  to  exist  beautifully. 

Hence  when  Leighton  tried  to  represent  vigorous  action 
he  failed,  as  in  the  Hercules  wrestling  with  Death 
already  referred  to.  He  failed  also  in  the  region  of  imagi- 
nation, as  in  The  Spirit  of  the  Peaky  where,  to  apply  a  test 
already  used,  the  picture  would  lose  nothing  if  imitated  in 
a  tableau.  Life  has  in  all  these  pictures  been  subordinated 
to  beauty,  and  the  beauty  itself  is  cold  and  superficial; 
there  radiate  no  light  and  heat  from  inward  fires.  Refined, 
stylistic  beauty  is  the  note  of  Leighton's  art.  In  this  kind 
of  art  his  contribution  was  a  very  considerable  one.  It  was 
not  a  new  kind.     He  only  produced  a  variation  of  the  old. 

With  Lord  Leighton  we  inevitably  associate  Sir  Edward 
John  Poynter,  who  succeeded  him  as  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy  after  Millais'  brief,  intervening  occupancy  of  the 
position.  In  1853,  when  he  was  only  seventeen  years  of 
age,  he  was  working  in  Leighton's  studio  in  Rome,  so  that 


288  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  association  of  the  two  men  is  first  and  last  a  close  one. 
Three  years  later  he  was  studying  in  Paris  under  Gleyre, 
everything  in  his  student-days  thus  tending  to  prepare  him 
to  be  the  classical  painter  he  actually  became,  although 
Du  Maurier  and  Whistler  were  among  his  fellow-students 
in  Paris,  and  they  went  widely  different  ways  from  him  in 
art.  Sir  Edward  is  a  Classicist  through  and  through  in  his 
art  and  in  his  teaching.  Subjects  from  Biblical  or  Classical 
sources  requiring  treatment  of  a  classical  nature — that  is  to 
say,  the  introduction  of  nude  or  classically  draped  figures — 
are  what  he  says  he  has  always  given  out  to  his  students 
for  practice,  "  because  I  consider  that  practice  in  that  form 
of  art,  demanding  as  it  does  the  highest  sense  of  beauty 
and  involving  the  greatest  difficulties  in  drawing  and  design, 
is  the  best  preparation  for  any  style  which  the  student's 
natural  tendencies  will  lead  him  ultimately  to  adopt."  The 
educational  mould  cannot  make  the  man.  It  must  influence 
him,  however,  and  it  may  help  to  mar  him;  and  it  may 
well  be  questioned  whether  one  plan  is  good  for  all  students. 
In  the  case  of  Sir  Edward  Poynter  himself  we  find  care- 
fully studied  nude  figures  which  only  lack  life ;  and  life  is 
not  an  unimportant  matter.  Just  as  the  Hercules  in  Leigh- 
ton's  picture  is  not  wrestling,  but  is  only  in  the  attitude  of 
wrestling,  so  the  runner,  Milanion,  in  Sir  Edward's  Atcdanta's 
Eace,  is  not  running,  but  is  only  in  the  attitude  of  running. 
His  subjects,  no  more  than  Leigh  ton's,  are  passionately  felt 
and  dramatically  realised.  His  Visit  to  JEsculapius  is  gener- 
ally regarded  as  his  most  successful  work.  It  may  well  be 
so,  for  the  subject  makes  no  demand  on  the  imagination, 
and  on  the  power  to  express  action  and  emotion.  It  is  the 
kind  of  thing  that  can  be  coldly  built  up  out  of  archseo- 
Jogical  learning  and  painstaking  study  of  the  nude. 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  289 

Sir  Laurens  Alma  Tadema  is  an  importation  into  English 
art.  He  is  Dutch  both  by  parentage  and  birth,  a  native  of 
the  little  village  of  Dronryp,  near  Leeuevarden,  in  Frisia, 
where  he  was  born  in  1836.  His  father  was  a  notary,  and 
he  himself  was  first  trained  for  the  law ;  but  he  was  too 
strongly  inclined  towards  art  for  the  original  intention  to 
be  carried  out.  He  received  his  training  at  the  Antwerp 
Academy  under  Baron  Wappers  and  in  the  studio  of  Baron 
Leys.  In  1863  he  went  to  Rome,  the  city  of  which,  in  the 
days  of  its  imperial  splendour,  he  was  to  be  the  pictorial 
restorer.  In  1869  he  settled  in  London,  and  four  years 
later  became  naturalised  as  a  British  subject.  He  was  from 
the  first  an  historical  painter,  but  his  earliest  pictures  dealt 
with  the  Merovingian  period  of  history,  whereas  afterwards 
he  went  back  to  classical  Rome.  The  essentials  of  his  art 
had  been  determined  when  he  came  to  this  country.  He 
owes  nothing  to  its  earlier  art,  though  he  may  well  have 
been  confirmed  in  the  choice  he  had  made  by  the  companion- 
ship in  this  country  of  Leighton  and  Poynter.  Under 
Wappers  and  Leys  he  would  receive  an  entirely  adequate 
technical  training,  well  adapted  for  the  kind  of  work  to 
which  he  afterwards  devoted  himself.  Then  he  himself 
has  added  an  immense  apparatus  of  archaeological  learning. 
It  has  been  said  that  his  work  is  an  accurate  illustration  of 
Smith's  Dictionary  of  Antiquities,  and  ought  to  delight  the 
minds  of  archaeologists.  This  is  true,  but  perhaps  not  quite 
the  whole  truth;  there  is  some  life  in  his  pictures;  they 
are  not  merely  beautifully  designed  and  coloured  diagrams. 
This  very  point  of  the  life  in  his  figures  has  often  been  in 
dispute.  They  have  been  called  puppets,  not  individually 
and  psychologically  interesting.  Such  interest  is  perhaps 
not  necessary  to  the  purpose  of  most  of  his  pictures.  He 
u 


290  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

is  not  a  genre  painter,  nor  a  painter  of  dramatic  moments  in 
history.  He  has  for  the  most  part  sought  only  to  realise 
the  ordinary  look  of  life  in  imperial  Rome,  and  for  this 
purpose  close  psychological  study  is  not  needed.  The 
pictures  surely  do  what  the  painter  has  set  himself  to  do. 
It  is  not  an  achievement  that  appeals  to  the  emotions,  and 
therefore  we  are  not  moved.  He  has  not  on  the  artistic 
side  made  the  beauty  of  the  total  result  the  first  considera- 
tion, but  its  truth  to  fact  as  far  as  by  searching  and  by 
imagination  he  could  get  at  the  fact;  we  are  often,  there- 
fore, left  aesthetically  cold.  We  are  interested,  we  are 
instructed;  we  admire  the  skill  with  which  all  kinds  of 
objects  and  materials  are  imitated  and  gathered  not  un- 
harmoniously  together.  When  we  read  Roman  history 
w^e  have  a  more  vividly  particular  mental  picture  of 
the  stage  upon  which  the  drama  was  enacted  than  we 
should  have  had  without  the  painter's  help;  and  we  can 
believe  that  the  picture  is  not  widely  distant  from  the 
truth. 

The  people  in  these  pictures  are  certainly  more  living 
than  those  in  the  pictures  of  Leighton  and  Poynter.  Is 
this  recognised  when  these  two  are  called  classical  painters 
and  Alma  Tadema  an  historical  painter'?  And  does  the 
difference  show  the  limitation  of  the  classical  point  of  view 
and  the  classical  training?  Madox  Brown,  a  pupil  like 
Alma  Tadema  of  Wappers,  painted  historical  subjects  with 
great  dramatic  intensity.  Alma  Tadema,  choosing  to  see 
his  people  under  more  ordinary  conditions,  still  makes  them 
live.  The  figures  of  the  classical  painters  do  not  live. 
Rossetti,  in  a  playfully  or  earnestly  sarcastic  rhyme,  called 
one  classical  painter  ''of  well-jointed  dummies  the  jointer." 
It  is  in  this  want  of  life  that  we  find  the  weakness  of 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  291 

classical  art,  and,  as  a  rule,  the  drawing  of  the  figure  being 
put  first,  the  colour  is  weak  also. 

In  Albert  Moore,  brother  of  Henry  Moore,  the  sea 
painter,  who  has  been  mentioned  in  connexion  with  the 
Pre-Raphaelites,  we  find  again  the  influence  of  Japanese 
art.  It  has  softened  the  dignity  of  the  classical  ideal  into 
delicate  grace  and  loveliness.  He  was  born  at  York  in 
1841.  His  father  was  a  painter,  and  three  of  his  brothers, 
besides  Henry,  were  painters.  He  was  for  a  short  time  in 
the  Academy  Schools,  and  after  this  there  came  a  most 
important  preparation  for  the  kind  of  art  he  was  to  pro- 
duce, in  his  engagement  by  the  architect,  W.  Eden  ISTesfield, 
to  design  mural  and  ceiling  paintings.  He  visited  Rome  in 
1862,  tried  his  hand  at  a  Biblical  subject,  but  soon  turned 
to  the  decorative  art  which  was  the  chief,  indeed  almost  the 
only  work  of  his  life. 

"We  may  sum  up  his  art  by  saying  that  the  form  is  the 
form  of  Greece,  but  the  colour  is  the  colour  of  Japan.  The 
female  figures  of  the  Parthenon  sculptures  and  the  Venus 
of  Milo  have  been  clothed  in  garments  of  delicately  har- 
monised colour,  and  bidden  to  do  nothing  but  exist  grace- 
fully. He  was  entirely  of  the  opinion  of  Mr.  George 
Moore,  already  quoted,  that  subject  is  out  of  place  in  art. 
It  militates  against  decorative  quality.  That  is  to  say,  art 
should  always  be  decorative,  never  expressive.  Above  all 
things  there  must  be  no  zeal.  Nobody  must  seem  even  so 
much  as  capable  of  dreaming  that  there  might  ever  be  any- 
thing to  be  done  that  would  require  energetic  action.  The 
utmost  that  the  maidens  in  these  pictures  seem  to  be  able  to 
do  is  to  stand;  and  they  take  the  first  opportunity  not 
merely  of  sitting,  but  of  reclining  on  soft  cushions.  There 
is  no  suggestion  that  their  idleness  is  merely  temporary. 


292  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

that  it  is  rest  after  toil.  They  are  too  weak  in  the  back 
ever  to  do  any  work.  They  could  not  even  join  Leighton's 
Greek  girls  in  a  game  of  ball.  Of  course  this  is  a  dream- 
land of  the  painter's  imagining.  We  may  accept  it  as 
such,  though  it  is  a  dreamland  that  is  not  very  flattering  to 
human  nature.  The  male  sex  may  congratulate  itself  upon 
having  no  representatives  in  this  lazy  company.  One  may 
doubt  whether  the  attitudes — the  sprawling  attitudes — of 
some  of  the  maidens  are  really  beautiful.  It  does  not 
follow  that  because  activity  may  not  always  be  graceful 
idleness  always  is  so.  Yet  it  may  be  said  that  one  is 
dragging  in  subject  here;  that  the  artist  is  not  concerned 
with  attitudes,  but  with  rhythm  of  lines  and  harmony  of 
colour,  and  that  the  human  figure  is  only  introduced  in 
order  that  it  may  be  subordinated  to  the  praise  of  decorative 
beauty  which  thereby  receives  honour  almost  divine.  These 
maidens  are  indeed  cloistered  nuns,  expressionless  because 
emotionless,  dedicated,  it  might  almost  be  said  sacrificed, 
not  to  the  contemplative  Avorship  of  God,  but  to  the  worship 
of  merely  sensuous  beauty.  Such  art  as  this  ought  surely, 
in  its  intention  at  least,  to  please  M.  de  la  Sizeranne,  who, 
in  warning  his  fellow-countrymen  against  being  led  astray 
by  English  art  Avith  its  insistence  on  the  subject  in  paint- 
ing, says :  "  Let  us  beware,  above  all,  of  theories  which 
pretend  to  ennoble  the  mission  of  art  by  making  it  the 
mere  interpreter  of  ideas  and  feelings,  of  affirmations  or 
doubts,  and  which  give  the  artist  another  function  than  the 
expression  of  the  Beautiful,  the  Beautiful  alone  free  from 
figures  of  speech,  from  purpose,  from  preaching ;  as  if  there 
were  anything  in  the  world  that  could  deserve  to  have  the 
Beautiful  for  its  servant,  its  interpreter,  or  its  herald.  Let 
us  beware  of  the  error  of  believing  that  art  can  be  widened 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  293 

by  wandering,  deepened  by  the  overthrow  of  foundations, 
ennobled  by  servitude."  Albert  Moore  did  not  commit 
these  alleged  crimes  against  art — or,  to  be  really  accurate, 
against  beauty.  The  correction  is  necessary ;  for  M.  dc  la 
Sizeranne  takes  up  a  position  which  has  the  support  neither 
of  history  nor  of  reason  when  he  makes  beauty  the  sole 
end  of  art.  So  does  Mr.  Swinburne  when  he  says  that 
*'Mr.  Albert  Moore's  painting  is  to  artists  what  the  verse  of 
Theophile  Gautier  is  to  poets :  the  faultless  and  secure  ex- 
pression of  an  exclusive  worship  of  things  formally  beauti- 
ful. That  contents  them ;  they  leave  to  others  the  labours 
and  the  joys  of  thought  or  passion."  Some  artists  and 
poets  may  have  been  content  with  the  exclusive  worship  of 
things  formally  beautiful,  but  certainly  the  great  majority 
have  not  unless,  of  course,  we  are  to  say  that  any  one  not 
so  content  is  not  artist  or  poet.  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  thinks 
that  it  is  the  peculiar  sin  of  English  artists  not  exclusively 
to  worship  beauty.  Were  none  but  such  worshippers 
among  the  painters  of  his  own  country  accounted  artists, 
the  ranks  would  be  sadly  thinned  out. 

Albert  Moore's  art  is  beautiful;  but  the  painters  who 
have  cared  for  other  things  than  beauty,  even  those  who 
have  put  other  things  to  the  front,  such  men  as  Madox 
Brown  and  Watts,  have  in  the  course  of  their  work  pro- 
duced splendid  rhythm  of  line  and  form  and  rich  harmony 
of  colour  in  comparison  with  which  his  pictures  are  little 
more  than  prettiness.  The  same  superiority  is  evident  in 
the  art  of  Rossetti — who,  as  we  have  seen,  would  not 
accept  art  for  art's  sake  as  a  religion — and  Burne-Jones  and 
many  others.  One  has  to  think  of  beauty  as  having  lower 
and  higher  degrees ;  and  the  highest  degrees  have  not  been 
reached  only,  if  ever,  by  those  who  in  tlieh*  art  have  made 


294  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

beauty  tlieir  one  and  only  aim.  Happily,  therefore,  for  the 
sake  of  beauty  itself,  artists  as  a  body  show  no  sign  of 
limiting  themselves  as  Albert  Moore  limited  himself,  and 
according  to  the  law  that  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  lays  down. 
These  matters  are  determined  by  temperament,  not  by  rules 
imposed  from  without,  and  those  who  feel  impelled  to  use 
the  human  form  to  other  ends  besides  that  of  formal  beauty 
will  continue  to  do  so,  however  loudly  the  idolaters  of 
beauty  may  cry  out  against  them.  For  idolaters  do  not 
rightly  worship  their  own  gods. 

It  is  here,  perhaps,  immediately  after  commenting  on  the 
work  of  a  painter  who  made  beauty  the  exclusive  end  of  his 
art,  that  we  can  with  most  advantage  consider  the  work  of 
G.  F.  Watts,  who  said  that  his  own  aim  was  rather  to  teach 
great  truths  than  to  paint  pictures  that  would  please  the 
eye.  It  may  be  that  the  pictures  please  the  eye  despite  the 
priority  given  by  the  artist  himself  to  the  teaching.  I 
should  maintain  that  even  if  this  were  not  so,  if  beauty 
were  sacrificed  to  the  success  of  the  teaching,  the  sacrifice 
would  be  justified  if  the  teaching  went  home.  There  are 
those,  of  course,  who  say  that  words  are  the  proper  media 
for  teaching;  that  if  painting  attempts  it  there  has  only 
been  an  invasion  of  the  province  of  oratory  or  literature. 
But  if  the  teaching  of  a  picture  does  get  home,  it  is  clear 
that  painting  is  on  its  own  ground. 
*  Can  it  be  said  that  Watts  succeeds  as  a  teacher? 
Happily  I  am  not  reduced  to  the  statement  that  he  succeeds 
for  me.  I  can  bring  in  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  as  a  witness. 
He  tells  us  that  he  "  held  the  conviction,  common  to  many, 
that  mythological  painting  was  a  false,  decadent,  common- 
place style;  that  out  of  such  impersonal  figures  as  Death, 
Justice,  Time,  and  Love,  nothing  more  could  nowadays  be 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  295 

made  than  a  spiritless  decoration  for  the  ceilings  of  a  public 
building  or  of  a  confectioner's  shop,"  but  that  Watts's  Love 
and  Life  and  Love  and  Death  convinced  him  to  the  con- 
trary ;  and  of  Watts's  pictures  generally  he  says  :  "  And  yet 
you  linger,  for  whilst  Watts's  colour  distracts  the  eye,  his 
ideas  penetrate  to  the  depths  of  the  soul,  and  slowly  arouse 
something  that  was  sleeping  there." 

I  have  said  that  Watts's  pictures  may  please  the  eye  even 
though  they  chiefly  aim  to  teach  great  truths.     They  do  not 
please  the  eye  of  M.  de  la  Sizeranne,  who  denies  to  Watts 
all  picturesque  feeling.     ^Mr.  George  Clausen,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  is  not  unacquainted  with  French  painting,  who 
has,  indeed,  been  much  influenced  by  it,  says  that  although 
Watts  did  not  primarily  wish  his  pictures  to  have  beauty, 
yet  "  he  was  so  fine  an  artist  that  he  could  not  help  himself 
in  this."     A  good  deal  of  the  French  writer's  criticism  of 
English  painting  suggests  his  having  merely  concluded  that 
what  was  strange  to  him  must  be  wrong.     He  says  that 
Watts's  colours  are  out  of   tune  and  his  pictures  colour- 
discords.     Mr.  Clausen  says  that  colour  was  certainly  one  of 
his  strong  points,  and  he  mentions  Watts's  landscapes,  in 
connexion   with   the  statement   that  "he  had   the   whole 
range  of  colour  in  nature,  and  what  it  means  or  suggests,  at 
his  command,  and  used  it  in  his  pictures  as  Turner  did  in 
his   landscapes  .  .  .  treating   his  figures  as  if    they  were 
subject  to  all  variations  of   light;   and  almost,  at  times, 
making  the  play  of  light  and  shadow  on  figures  to  suggest 
the  play  of  light  and  shadow  on  a  mountain  side,  so  that 
one  instinctively  feels  the  figure  to  be  of  larger  than  ordinary 
human  stature :   something  colossal."     The  French  writer 
boldly   says    that   Watts   painted   no    landscapes,   because 
landscapes  prove  nothing ;  yet  Watts  actually  painted  land- 


296  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

scapes  not  a  few,  and  some  of  those  who  will  have  none  of 
him  as  a  teacher  find  his  landscapes  very  beautiful.  Are  we 
to  think,  as  some  of  these  critics  would  have  us,  that  his 
colour-sense  availed  him  in  his  landscapes  and  failed  him  in 
his  imaginative  subject-pictures  ? 

Born  in  London  in  1817,  Watts  was  by  four  years  the 
senior  of  Madox  Brown,  who  was  so  much  older  than 
Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  and  their  companions  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  Brotherhood  as  almost,  if  not  quite,  to  be  dis- 
qualified by  age  alone  from  joining  in  a  movement  originating 
in  youthful  enthusiasm.  Watts  was,  in  fact,  ten  years  older 
than  Holman  Hunt;  and  when  the  Brotherhood  was  formed 
was  nearly  thirty-three  years  of  age,  and  already  a  painter 
of  some  repute.  He  was  sixteen  years  older  than  Manet ; 
and  by  the  time  the  Impressionist  movement  was  fully 
developed  and  was  beginning  to  excite  derision  in  Paris,  he 
was  between  fifty  and  sixty  years  old.  But  his  life  and  his 
productivity  were  so  prolonged — he  outlived  Manet  by  over 
twenty  years — that  one  occasionally  suspects  writers  of  for- 
getting to  what  generation  he  really  belonged,  and  of 
blaming  him  because  when  past  middle  life  he  did  not 
throw  himself  into  movements  initiated  by  men  who  were 
children  when  he  was  maturing  his  art.  Yet  Watts  was 
consciously  an  Impressionist — consciously  and  avowedly. 
"  I  must  produce  an  effect,"  he  said,  "  and  so  I  must  ignore 
something,  and  accentuate  something  else.  Thus  only  can 
I  make  the  representation."  He  pointed  out  that  though 
the  photographer,  in  rendering  material  truth,  could  beat 
the  greatest  of  artists,  yet  his  object  twenty  yards  away  was 
not  the  same  as  his  object  close  to.  Watts  did  not,  of 
course,  go  as  far  as  the  Impressionists  in  giving  to  his  pictures 
an  illusive  appearance  of  reality ;  he  had  other  aims  which 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  297 

had  become  fixed  before  such  zeal  for  atmospheric  efifect 
had  been  aroused.  Yet  there  is  more  even  of  this  quality 
to  be  found  in  his  later  work  than  in  tliat  of  many  younger 
men  who  had  not  the  excuse  of  age  for  their  not  learning 
the  lesson  taught  by  Monet  and  his  companions  in  France. 
Watts,  in  fact,  dried  most  of  the  oil  out  of  the  pigments 
he  used,  in  order  that  the  crumbly  texture  of  the  paint 
might  give  the  effect  of  atmospheric  vibration. 

He  began  as  a  student  of  classical  art.  He  tried  the 
Academy  Schools,  but  soon  left  them.  The  most  fruitful 
part  of  his  early  training  was  the  study  of  the  Elgin  marbles. 
He  also  used  to  watch  the  sculptor  William  Behnes  at 
work;  indeed,  but  for  a  physical  infirmity  that  prevented 
him  from  working  with  the  wet  clay,  it  is  as  likely  as  not 
that  he  would  have  become  a  sculptor,  instead  of  a  painter 
who  also  did  work  in  sculpture.  His  art  owes  much  to  the 
art  of  Pheidias.  He  made  the  Parthenon  figures  to  live. 
Time^  in  his  picture  Time^  Deafhy  and  Judgment^  is  the 
Theseics  of  the  Parthenon,  up  and  striding  along,  and  there 
is  a  recollection  at  least  of  the  same  figure  in  others  of  his 
pictures.  His  Ariadne  is  sister  to  the  seated  female  figures 
of  the  Parthenon.  Yet  although  we  are  reminded  again 
and  again  in  his  paintings  of  the  masterpieces  of  the  idealist 
school  of  Greek  sculpture,  his  paintings  are  by  no  means 
sculpturesque. 

In  1843,  when  he  was  twenty-six  years  of  age,  he 
obtained  a  prize  for  a  cartoon,  Caractacus  led  in  triumph 
through  the  streets  of  Rome^  which  he  had  submitted  in 
a  competition  for  designs  for  the  decoration  of  the  Houses 
of  Parliament.  This  enabled  him  to  visit  Italy,  and 
through  the  kindness  of  Lord  Holland,  who  was  then 
British  Minister  at  the  Court  of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany, 


398  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  was  enabled  to  remain  there  for  four  years.  The  chief 
result  of  his  stay  was,  perhaps,  the  admiration  he  acquired 
for  the  colour  of  the  Venetian  painters.  He  would  never 
have  become  a  classical  painter,  basing  his  design  upon 
form.  His  earliest  paintings  show  a  strong  sense  of  colour. 
Those  that  were  painted  before  he  went  to  Italy — his  Aurora^ 
for  example — are  strongly  reminiscent  of  Etty.  His  study 
of  the  Venetian  masters  merely  added  to  the  resources  of 
one  who  was  already  a  colourist,  and  made  it  sure  that  each 
picture  would  have  its  complete  colour-scheme,  and  not  be 
a  mere  congeries  of  local  colours.  Would  it  be  correct, 
then,  to  describe  Watts  as  an  imitator  of  Greek  form  and 
Venetian  colour?  I  think  not.  He  learned  from  them, 
but  he  did  not  become  their  slave  and  echo.  His  form  was 
at  need,  and  often  at  need,  less  severe  than  that  of  the 
Parthenon  marbles ;  his  colour  had  a  wider  range  than  that 
of  the  Venetians.  He  was  a  debtor,  but  not  a  bondsman 
to  the  past. 

While  yet  quite  young  he  had  set  before  liimself  a  two- 
fold aim :  to  paint  an  epic  of  human  life,  and  also  to  paint, 
and  to  give  to  the  nation,  the  portraits  of  many  of  the  most 
eminent  men  of  his  own  time.  Both  these  aims  were 
reaHsed,  but  the  former  not  in  the  manner  he  had  wished. 
Adequately  to  carry  it  out  he  required  a  building  of  Avhich 
his  epic  pictures  would  be  the  decoration,  and  this  was 
denied  to  him.  We  have  seen  that  he  proposed  to  the 
directors  of  the  London  and  North- Western  Railway  Com- 
pany that  he  should,  at  his  own  expense,  paint  his  epic  on 
the  walls  of  the  waiting-hall  at  Euston  Station,  and  that  the 
offer  was  refused.  One  opportunity  for  such  work  he 
sought  and  obtained :  the  painting  of  The  School  of  Legis- 
lature or  Justice :  a  Hemicyclt  of  Law-givers^  on  the  end 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  299 

wall  of  the  Hall  of  Lincoln's  Inn.  For  the  rest  he  had  to 
be  content  with  easel-pictures,  and  it  is  in  this  form,  as 
little  more  than  a  fragment,  that  his  epic  now  exists. 
Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  better  fortune  in 
this  respect  of  such  an  artist  as  Puvis  de  Chavannes  in 
France. 

Watts  was,  of  course,  much  older  than  even  Lcighton, 
the  eldest  of  the  four  painters  mentioned  before  him.  He 
has  been  taken  after  them  because  thereby  we  are  better 
able  to  bring  out  the  richer  content  of  his  art.  Albert 
Moore  aimed  at  nothing  more  than  decorative  effect.  He 
put  the  female  figures  of  the  Parthenon  pediments  to  deco- 
rative use.  It  is  easy,  as  we  have  said,  to  see  the  influence 
of  those  figures  in  Watts's  work.  But  whereas  Albert 
Moore's  reclming  maidens  are  merely  idle,  Watts's  Ariadne 
half  lies  upon  the  rock  in  the  listlessness  of  despair.  In 
form  and  feature  she  is  sister  to  the  others ;  but  whereas 
they  merely  exist,  she  is  living.  No  trouble  comes  nigh 
them ;  her  heart  is  full  of  sorrow,  which  finds  expression  in 
her  face  and  in  the  drooping  body  and  limb ;  she  is  like 
a  plant  that  fades  for  want  of  water.  In  the  paintings  of 
Leighton  and  Poynter  there  is  not  the  entire  absence  of 
subject  that  marks  those  of  Albert  Moore.  But  even  here 
there  is  a  wide  difl*erence  from  the  work  of  Watts.  It  has 
been  said  already  that  they  seem  to  approach  their  subject 
from  the  outside.  And,  beginning  there,  they  do  not 
penetrate  to  the  heart  of  it.  With  them  it  seems  only 
a  means  to  an  end.  In  Alma  Tadema's  pictures  the  figures 
have,  on  the  whole,  more  vitality.  Watts's  figures  are 
entirely  vital.     And  the  reason  of  this  is  not  far  to  seek. 

His  aim,  we  have  seen,  as  stated  by  himself,  was  to  teach 
great   truths.     The  phrase   is   not   adequate.     Perhaps  no 


300  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

single,  simple  phrase  could  adequately  describe  his  aim,  but 
it  would  certainly  be  nearer  the  mark  to  say  that  he  sought 
to  express  deep  emotions.  He  was  concerned  not  with 
science  or  philosophy,  not  with  morals  or  political  economy, 
but  with  Love.  The  subject  that  above  all  others  engaged 
"Watts's  thought,  that  almost  engrossed  his  art,  was  the 
charity  that  is  the  greatest  of  all.  His  art  was  controlled 
not  by  thought,  but  by  feeling.  He  only  painted  that  which 
he  deeply  felt.  He  did  not  approach  his  subject  from  the 
outside.  The  man  had  reached  the  heart  of  it  before  the 
artist  began  to  give  form  to  it.  Hence,  we  may  say,  the 
form  itself  vibrates  with  emotion. 

The  reader  may  wonder  why  it  should  have  been  said 
above  that  Watts  was  not  concerned  with  political  economy. 
To  speak  paradoxically,  this  was  said  because,  in  the  deepest 
sense,  he  was  concerned  with  it :  he  felt  deeply  the  loveless- 
ness  that  makes  possible,  that  makes  inevitable,  our  existing 
competitive  methods.  We  do  not  believe  in  love  as  a  motive 
strong  enough  to  ensure  steady  social  activity  in  the  ordinary 
work  of  the  world.  Hence  we  have  a  panic  struggle  to 
escape  from  poverty.  We  are  always  in  a  condition  of 
panic,  which  at  times  becomes  disastrously  acute.  Watts 
felt  this,  and  painted  the  oak,  the  symbol  of  England, 
weighed  down  by  a  heavy,  golden  pall ;  and  the  lurid  hues 
of  the  picture  prove  it  to  be  a  work  of  emotion,  not  of  cold 
analysis.  This  is  true  also  of  Pmjce  and  Goodioilli  the  out- 
cast mother  and  child.  The  former,  wearied  with  much 
wandering,  has  sunk  to  the  earth  and  is  looking  at  a  light 
on  the  horizon,  wondering  if  it  be  a  peaceful  dawn  or  but 
a  new  conflagration  of  war.  In  Labour  and  Greed,  the  con- 
trast between  the  stalwart,  open-faced  workman  and  the 
shrivelled-up  miser    grasping  his  money-bags  may  seem  to 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  301 

many  plain  preaching  merely ;  but  this  can  only  be  because 
they  are  emotionally  dead  where  Watts  was  emotionally 
alive.  So  it  is  also  with  Mammon  and  with  The  Minotaur^ 
those  horrible  personifications  of  evil.  Another  appeal  to 
love  against  lovelessness  is  A  Dedication^  an  angel  weeping 
over  birds'  feathers  lying  upon  an  altar  :  a  lament  over  the 
heedless  cruelty  that  sacrifices  life  to  vanity.  What  I  want 
at  the  moment  to  say  about  these  pictures  is  independent  of 
the  question  of  the  fitness  of  such  subjects  for  treatment  in 
painting,  though  even  there  the  final  question  with  me  is, 
"  Do  they  strike  home  % "  They  are,  perhaps,  from  the  art  for 
beauty's  sake  standpoint,  among  the  worst  of  Watts's  pictures, 
though  they  are  far  from  wanting  in  aesthetic  quality.  Mr. 
Clausen,  for  example,  says,  with  reference  to  Watts's  pictures 
generally,  and  in  particular  to  the  one  showing  England's 
oak  weighed  down  under  a  pall  of  gold  :  "  Every  tone,  every 
suggestion  has  its  meaning ;  take,  for  instance,  the  dark  and 
threatening  sky  in  the  picture  '  Can  these  Bones  live  %  * 
But  these  artifices  are  not  at  first  apparent.  They  are  used 
so  splendidly  that  the  pictures  are  in  themselves  beautiful  as 
decorations,  were  there  no  meaning  in  them  at  all."  The 
pictures  do  not  lack  beauty;  only  they  insist  so  on  our 
feeling  other  than  merely  sensuous  emotions  that  those  who 
will  have  nothing  else  from  art  inevitably  grow  angry  mth 
them.  What,  however,  I  want  to  lay  stress  upon  at  the 
moment  is  that  such  subjects  as  these  were  chosen  by  Watts 
not  because  he  "  set  himself  up  "  as  a  teacher,  but  because 
a  deep  sympathy  with  the  oppressed  and  the  suffering,  pure 
love  for  his  kind,  must  needs  find  expression  in  the  only 
way  possible  to  him. 

Watts  was  a  man  of  quick  and  generous  feeling  and  of 
lofty  imagination.     He  could  dramatise  the  evolution  of  the 


302  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

human  race,  and  yet  keenly  sympathise  with  the  individual, 
and  even  play  with  the  children;  and  the  whole  man  is 
revealed  in  his  art.  Probably  the  work  of  no  other  painter 
has  been  a  more  complete  self-revelation.  What  we  can 
learn  of  him  apart  from  his  pictures  adds  nothing  of  essen- 
tial importance. 

Watts  was  singularly  fortunate  in  that  at  no  period  of  his 
life  did  he  find  himself  under  the  necessity  of  painting  to 
order.  He  was  always  able  to  paint  what  he  liked  as  he 
liked.  If  any  exception  can  be  made  to  this  statement 
it  is  that  he  won  this  independence  by  portrait  painting, 
which  could  not  therefore  be  entirely  a  matter  of  choice ; 
though  even  here,  probably,  the  compulsion  did  not  mean 
that  he  had  to  do  anything  that  he  would  not  otherwise 
have  been  glad  to  do.  Apart  from  this,  he  was  not  limited 
by  commissions ;  we  can  never  think  of  him,  as  we  have 
to  think  of  Millais,  as  falling  below  his  best  in  order  to 
please  his  public.  There  is  much  self-revelation  in  Millais' 
works.  We  can  learn  from  them  much  about  his  likes, 
and  we  can  infer  his  dislikes.  But  Millais  did  not  work 
as  independently  of  his  public  as  did  Watts,  who  always 
could,  or  did,  afford  to  please  himself  whether  others 
were  pleased  or  not;  and  others  were  pleased.  He  could 
have  had  his  own  price  for  paintings  that  he  kept  in  order 
to  give  them  to  the  nation.  He  gave  pictures  to  public 
bodies  whose  offers  to  buy  he  had  refused.  He  chose  the 
men  whose  portraits  he  would  paint,  so  that  he  might  by 
gift  enrich  the  national  collection  of  portraits.  We  may  put 
it  that  he  had  not  to  impose  himself  upon  his  contempo- 
raries ;  he  was  accepted  on  his  own  terms.  That  is  why  his 
art  could  be  and  was  a  self-revelation. 

At  one  time  or  another,  in  one  picture   or  another,  he 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  303 

covered  a  wide  range  of  subject.  And  always,  just  because 
he  could  be  entirely  true  to  his  own  self,  could  fearlessly  set 
forth  his  thought  and  feeling,  his  work  is  always  sincere  in 
the  strongest  sense  of  the  word ;  it  tells  not  merely  nothing 
that  is  untrue,  but  it  hides  nothing  of  what  he  held  to  be 
true.     The  whole  man,  one  repeats,  is  revealed  in  his  work. 

He  took  many  subjects  from  Greek  mythology.  One  of 
these  was  the  story  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice.  M.  de  la 
Sizeranne  objects  to  the  figure  of  Orpheus,  because  the 
trunk  turns  whilst  the  legs  remain  stationary  in  their  first 
position.  This  is  an  objection  to  truth.  Orpheus,  continu- 
ing to  walk,  has  turned  his  body  and  head  to  assure  himself 
that  Eurydice  is  following  him.  Because  of  this  disobedience 
to  the  god's  command,  she  fades  from  his  sight,  and  he 
seeks  to  grasp  her.  The  awkward  action  of  Orpheus  is 
exactly  true  to  what  would  happen,  and  in  no  other  way 
could  Watts  have  so  vividly  conveyed  to  us  a  sense  of  his 
sudden  agony.  The  action  is  similar  to  that  of  Romeo  in 
Madox  Brown's  Borneo  and  Juliet^  where  one  leg  is  already 
astride  the  balcony,  for  the  dawn  has  broken  and  he  must 
depart.  His  outstretched  arm  also  seems  to  say  that  he  must 
be  gone.  But  he  has  turned  for  a  last  kiss,  and  the  mo- 
mentary position  tells  of  the  lover's  agony :  he  fain  would 
stay,  but  he  knows  it  is  death  to  linger. 

In  expressiveness  of  this  kind  Watts  comes  close  to  the 
Pre-Raphaelites.  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  thought  that,  at  the 
time  of  the  movement,  he  could  see  it  of  influence  on  Watts's 
work ;  that  there  was  evidence  in  its  closer  attention  to  detail. 
Certainly  Watts  never  became  a  Pre-Raphaelite  in  this 
sense,  whether  or  not  his  practice  was  modified  for  a  time  to 
a  minor  extent.  But  if  he  had  a  story  to  tell,  he  told  it  as 
dramatically  as  possible ;  and  his  story-telling  was  none  the 


304  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

worse  because  he  never  brought  in  irrelevant  detail.  The 
staging  of  the  piece  never  distracts  our  attention  from  the 
action,  and  yet  it  is  never  bald ;  it  is  simple  but  sufficient. 
This  follows  from  what  has  been  said  before  :  that  the  man 
had  got  to  the  heart  of  the  subject  before  the  painter  gave 
form  to  it.  How  true  this  is  of  Love  and  Death.  He  had 
actually  been  the  sorrowing  witness  of  love  vainly  striving 
to  keep  death  away  from  the  house  of  life.  He  had  seen  a 
young  nobleman  of  great  promise,  whose  portrait  he  was 
painting,  gradually  fail,  despite  all  that  could  be  done  for 
him,  until  the  end  came.  The  picture  represents  the 
reaction  of  "Watts's  spirit  against  the  crushing  sense  of 
irreparable  loss.  It  shows  Love  to  be  wrong — one  hesitates 
to  say  foolish — in  looking  upon  Death  as  an  enemy.  That 
grand,  grey  figure  with  the  bowed  head  does  but  hide  the 
light  for  a  moment,  that  the  splendour  of  its  shining  may 
be  the  more  intensely  realised.  This  the  picture  says  with 
the  utmost  impressiveness ;  and  precisely  because,  still  to 
refer  to  it  in  terms  of  speech,  not  a  word  is  wasted  in  the 
telling.  It  is  exactly  the  same  with  the  picture  reproduced 
here.  Love  and  Life.  At  once,  as  soon  as  he  has  seen  her 
plight.  Love  has  sped  down  to  where  dim- sighted  Life  is 
straying  near  the  perilous  edge  of  the  precipice,  and  he  is 
now  gently  leading  her  from  darkness  and  danger  up  to 
safety  and  the  light.  Here  also  there  is  nothing  too  little 
and  nothing  too  much,  that  either  way  the  story  should  fail 
of  its  desired  effect  upon  us. 

Of  course,  Watts  was  not  always  at  his  best.  Some  of 
the  subjects  he  treated  were  less  easily  than  others  to  be 
dealt  with  by  pictorial  art.  Even  in  respect  to  the  purely 
artistic  side  of  his  work  he  was  not  always  at  the  same  level 
of  accomplishment.     He  ventured  too  much  for  that.     His 


LOVE  AND  LIFE 


G.    F.    WATTS 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  305 

life-work  as  a  whole  leaves  us  with  a  feeling  of  inequality, 
of  incompleteness,  much  more  so  than  does  the  work  of 
many  who  have  never  gained  the  heights  that  he  did.  His 
reach  exceeded  his  grasp.  He  would  not  limit  himself  to 
that  which  he  could  say  with  perfect  utterance.  The  man 
shows  himself  in  his  work  to  have  been  greater  than  his 
work. 

To  follow  him  in  detail  through  his  work  is  impossible 
here ;  and  besides,  I  have  attempted  it  elsewhere.  The  burden 
of  his  pictures,  it  has  already  been  said,  is  Love,  and  the 
few  that  have  been  mentioned  testify  to  this.  He  has 
shown  us  much  of  healthy  and  beautiful  life.  He  was  not 
blind  to  the  splendour  of  the  universe  in  which  we  live, 
nor  to  the  beauty  of  the  world  in  which  one  scene  in  the 
drama  of  our  life  is  being  played.  He  faced  the  great 
twin-tragedy  of  sin  and  death,  and  proclaimed  that  only 
against  lovelessness  could  Time  and  Death  and  Judgment 
prevail ;  while  Love  would  spring  up  triumphant  when  they 
were  for  ever  laid  low.  There  is  nothing  sensational,  nothing 
abstruse,  nothing  even  esoteric  or  mystical  in  this  "teaching  " 
of  Watts's.  There  is  merely  the  variously  but  always  in- 
tensely felt  and  uttered  belief,  that,  to  vary  only  slightly  the 
words  of  his  friend  Tennyson — 

God  is  love  indeed, 
And  love  Creation's  final  law. 

Thus  he  accomplished  one  of  the  tasks  he  set  himself :  the 
painting  of  a  human  epic.  It  is  not  to  be  found  on  the  walls 
of  a  great  building  erected  for  its  reception;  for  he  con- 
ceived his  epic  when  even  less  than  now  was  there  much 
chance  of  one  who  had  a  gift  for  mural  painting  getting 
facilities  for  the  exercise  of  his  gift.     Much  of  his  epic, 


306  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

however,  is,  through  his  generosity,  in  one  of  the  rooms  of 
the  National  Gallery.  In  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  we 
can  see  how  he  accomplished  the  other  task  he  set  himself : 
that  of  painting  the  portraits  of  the  most  eminent  of  his 
contemporaries.  Here,  again,  is  nothing  but  what  is  neces- 
sary for  the  achievement  of  his  aim,  which  was  to  find  and 
subtly  render  the  expression  that  most  revealed  the  spirit 
within.  "Whatever  may  be  said  about  some  or  many  of  his 
subject-pictures,  there  are  few  to  say  that  he  did  not  almost, 
if  not  wholly  without  exception,  give  a  profound  interpreta- 
tion of  those  whose  portraits  he  painted.  If  at  times  there 
is  over-statement  with  regard  to  certain  characteristics  of  his 
subject,  it  is  never  more  than  emphasis  of  the  qualities  for 
which  he  is  chiefly  known  or  remembered.  We  must  not 
particularise ;  but  the  future  will  be  Watts's  debtor  for  such 
portraits  as  those  of  Stuart  Mill,  Manning,  Tennyson, 
Matthew  Arnold,  Rossetti,  William  Morris,  and  many 
another.  It  will  be  laiown  how  these  men  looked  to  one 
who  desired  to  paint,  and  did  paint,  their  portraits,  because 
of  his  great  admiration  for  them  and  the  work  they  did. 

After  mentioning  Mrs.  Swynnerton  as  an  imaginative 
painter  we  may  well  link  the  men  just  discussed  with  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  leaders.  Watts  was  the  oldest  of  them  all. 
Then  came  Madox  Brown.  Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  and 
Rossetti  were  a  few  years  younger  again.  Poynter,  Alma 
Tadema,  and  Burne-Jones  were  almost  a  generation  later 
still.  Together  they  show  us  what  we  have  seen  in  other 
countries.  Classicism,  Romanticism,  and  Realism  flourishing 
side  by  side ;  and  we  have  the  Realists  going  now  to  history 
and  now  to  contemporary  life  for  their  subjects. 

Watts,  Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  Rossetti,  and  Burne-Jones 
owed  nothing  to  contemporary  art  abroad.     Madox  Brown 


ALFRED   LORD  TENNYSON 


G.    F.    WATT! 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  2>o7 

owed  to  his  Flemish  teachers  rather  the  technique  than  the 
spirit  of  liis  art.  Foreign  influence,  doubtless,  accounted  for 
much  in  the  art  of  Leighton ;  and  Poynter  was  the  pupil  of 
Gleyre.  Albert  Moore  took  his  form  from  the  Greeks  and 
his  colour  from  the  Japanese.  Alma  Tadema  brought  over 
from  Holland  an  art  to  which  our  own  art  was  already  akin. 
Rossetti  was  more  an  Italian  than  an  Englishman.  Bume- 
Jones  learned  from  him,  and  was  greatly  influenced  by  the 
work  of  the  earlier  Italian  masters.  Watts,  we  have  just 
seen,  was  a  child  of  Greece  and  of  Venice.  Holman  Hunt 
and  Millais  seem  the  only  two  among  them  all  who  were 
anything  approaching  a  purely  English  breed  in  art;  and 
while  Millais  was  early  an  admirer  of  Etty,  the  admirer 
in  his  turn  of  the  Venetians,  we  should,  of  course,  find 
other  foreign  influences  at  work  if  we  pushed  our  inquiry 
further  back  in  the  history  of  English  art. 

Sir  Hubert  Herkomer  said  once  that  his  school  at 
Bushey,  which  was  founded  in  1883,  was  intended  to  keep 
students  from  rushing  abroad,  "only  perhaps  to  lose  their 
English  feeling,  without  being  able  to  grasp  the  foreign 
style  and  thought  in  art."  But  he  who  said  this  was  a 
German,  who  learned  the  art  of  painting  in  this  country. 
Notwithstanding  the  foundation  of  his  school,  English 
students  have  rushed,  or  at  least  have  gone  abroad;  and, 
as  we  shall  see  later,  one  of  the  most  vigorous  of  our  un- 
ofiicial  art  institutions,  the  New  English  Art  Club,  was 
founded  in  1886  as  a  rallying-ground  for  those  artists  who 
had  received  their  training  in  Paris,  and  who  felt  that  their 
work  did  not  receive  adequate  recognition  in  official  quarters. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  agree  with  Whistler  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  nationaUty  in  art ;  but  what  we  have  just  seen 
with  respect  to  some  of   the  chief   English  painters  who 


3o8  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

reached  their  maturity  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  last 
half-century,  proves  that  the  art  of  our  own  nation  at  that 
time  was  largely  indebted  to  the  influence  of  foreign  art, 
contemporary  or  of  earlier  date.  Only  the  extreme  Pre- 
Raphaelite  literalism  of  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  was  a 
purely  indigenous  growth ;  and  this  was  rather  a  matter  of 
scientific  record  than  of  art. 

Of  the  painters  who,  coming  later  than  those  just  men- 
tioned, have  also  drawn  their  inspiration  from  myth  and 
legend,  Mr.  J.  W.  Waterhouse  should  perhaps  be  men- 
tioned first.  His  work  at  once  invites  comparison  with 
that  of  Burne-Jones,  because  he  chose  much  the  same  kind 
of  subjects,  such  as  the  Greek  myths  and  the  Arthurian 
legend.  There  is  a  marked  difference,  however,  in  the 
spirit  in  which  the  two  men  have  approached  such  subjects. 
With  Burne-Jones  we  are  clearly  in  dreamland ;  Mr.  Water- 
house  takes  us  among  flesh-and-blood  realities.  If  he  were 
painting  scenes  from  contemporary  life  he  could  hardly 
make  them  more  realistic.  The  people  who  believed  the 
mythical  and  legendary  stories  must,  we  think,  have  thought 
of  them  in  this  way.  The  figures  are  realistic,  and  so  are 
their  surroundings.  The  landscape  of  his  Hylas  and  the 
Nymphs  has  been  studied  on  the  spot,  and  is  realised  with 
only  less  than  Pre-Raphaelite  literalness.  Hylas,  and  the 
nymphs  who  are  casting  their  spell  over  him,  are  equally 
real.  The  story  is  being  enacted  before  our  eyes.  It  is  so 
with  his  Lady  of  Shalott,  both  where  the  curse  comes  upon 
her  and  where  she  is  drifting  down  the  river  in  her  boat, 
and,  indeed,  with  all  his  pictures.  Leighton's  formal  com- 
positions, with  their  decorative  colour,  and  Burne-Jones's 
elaborate  designs,  the  figures  in  which  are  intended  only  to 
be  types,  keep  us  far  away  from  naturalism.    In  Mr.  Water- 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  309 

house's  work  there  is  less  formality  in  the  design,  and 
though  the  same  face  may  appear  again  and  again  to  play 
many  different  parts,  the  expression  is  always  varied  to 
suit  the  parts.  Mr.  AVaterhouse  is  the  son  of  a  painter. 
He  was  born  in  Rome  in  1849,  and  though  he  was  brought 
to  England  when  only  five  years  old,  he  was  an  impression- 
able child,  and  the  early  years  spent  in  the  land  of  romance 
were  probably  not  the  least  important  in  determining  his 
career  and  the  particular  direction  his  art-work  would  take. 
That  he  could  look  back  to  treasuring  a  bit  of  Pompeian 
fresco  M'hen  he  was  hardly  beyond  infancy,  must  have 
helped  to  draw  him  towards  the  old-time  stories  he  has 
retold  with  a  naturalism  that  might  almost  be  called  simple. 

Sir  William  B.  Richmond  was  closely  allied  to  the 
Rossetti  and  Burne- Jones  group  in  his  early  days;  but  after- 
wards he  turned  more  towards  Classicism,  and  has  painted 
pictures  of  classical  subjects  more  animated  than  those  of 
Leighton  and  Poynter,  but  lacking  both  in  design  and 
colour.  His  brush-work  also  is  smooth  and  uninteresting. 
He  has  painted  numerous  portraits  which  show  the  same 
technical  limitations. 

Mr.  Frank  Dicksee  comes  of  a  family  of  painters.  Born 
in  1853,  he  studied  in  the  Academy  Schools,  and  his 
picture  Harmony,  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  1877, 
created  little  less  than  a  sensation  in  academic  circles,  and  was 
purchased  for  the  nation  under  the  terms  of  the  Chantrey 
Bequest.  His  style  might  perhaps  be  most  fitly  described, 
taking  a  hint  from  Gothic  architecture,  as  the  decorated 
academic;  and  the  quality  suggested  by  the  first  adjective 
is  even  more  prominent  in  his  later  than  in  his  early  work. 
Some  of  his  canvases  are  an  almost  barbaric  display  of 
gorgeous  stufis  and  jewels;  but  all  the  splendour  does  not 


3IO  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

result  in  really  fine  colour,  while  the  interpretation  of  his 
subjects  is  quite  commonplace. 

Mr.  Arthur  Hacker  belongs  to  this  group.  He  was  a 
student  in  the  Academy  Schools,  and  then  studied  in  Paris 
under  Bonnat,  the  French  influence  being  evident  in  his 
leaning  towards  tone  rather  than  colour.  He  was  one  of  the 
first  members  of  the  New  English  Art  Club,  but  his 
membership  soon  terminated,  as  did  that  of  others  who  had 
joined  it  at  the  commencement,  when  its  standpoint  became 
something  more  definite  than  that  of  a  rallying-ground  for 
painters  who  had  been  trained  in  France.  Mr.  Hacker  has 
painted  the  nude  without  ofi'ence,  except  to  those  who 
place  upon  it  an  absolute  ban;  and  as  one  thinks  of  him 
there  come  to  mind  a  Syrinx,  a  charming  picture,  but  hardly 
an  interpretation  of  a  Greek  myth,  an  Annunciation  that 
betrays  no  sign  of  spiritual  imagination,  a  knight  almost 
but  not  quite  overcome  by  a  temptress,  and  similar  pictures, 
each  of  them  a  capable  academic  exercise.  Still  later — we 
have  passed  from  the  forties,  through  the  fifties  to  the 
sixties  in  point  of  birth — we  come  to  Mr.  Herbert  Draper, 
an  Academy-trained  painter  who  has  taken  Lord  Leighton 
for  his  model.  He  retells  the  Greek  myths  and  legends 
without  freshness  of  interpretation;  once  more  they  prove 
good  material  for  academic  picture-making.  There  is  some- 
what more  animation  in  his  pictures  than  in  those  of 
Leighton;  in  fact,  they  may  be  said  to  halt  between  two 
opinions :  they  fall  short  of  the  dignity  and  reserve  of  the 
purely  classical,  and  they  are  not  sufficiently  realistic  to 
make  the  story-telling  anything  like  convincing.  In  another 
direction,  he  is  completely  outside  Burne- Jones's  dreamland. 

We  go  back  a  little  in  mentioning  Mr.  T.  C.  Gotch,  whose 
romantic  pictures  of  childhood  are  most  fittingly  referred  to 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  311 

here.  The  chief  scenes  of  his  art  training  were  Antwerp  and 
Paris ;  for  a  time  he  was  a  pupil  of  Laurens ;  and  afterwards 
he  visited  Italy.  The  Flemish  and  Italian  influences  are 
the  most  obvious  ones  in  his  work.  In  virtue  of  having 
been  in  Paris  he  joined  the  New  English  Art  Club,  but  he 
was  at  home  neither  there  nor,  afterwards,  with  the  Newlyn 
Realists.  He  has  made  an  idealised  childhood  in  a  romantic 
world  his  theme;  and  before  his  pictures  we  cannot  but 
think  of  the  charming  processional  scenes  of  the  Florentine 
masters.  Such  a  picture  as  Alleluia^  in  the  Tate  Gallery,  is 
surely  what  Mr.  Berenson  calls,  with  reference  to  the  work 
of  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  religious  genre.  Sometimes  we  find 
ourselves  vaguely  wishing  that  all  children,  even  elementary 
school-children,  could  be  as  nice  and  as  nicely  dressed  and 
in  such  a  beautiful  world  as  are  Mr.  Gotch's  children ;  and 
then  disillusionment  comes,  for  we  cannot,  in  our  aestheti- 
cally unregenerate  condition,  think  of  such  children  as  being 
not  tainted  with  priggish  self-consciousness.  Fancy  children 
marching  to  judgment  a  culprit  who  has  broken  a  costly 
china  bowl ! 

Mr.  C.  H.  Shannon  and  Mr.  Maurice  Greiffenhagen  should 
also  be  mentioned  here.  Mr.  Shannon  may  remind  us  of 
Watts,  Rossetti,  and  Burne-Jones,  but  the  fact  that  we  can 
mention  three  names  in  this  manner — and,  doubtless,  they 
might  be  added  to — suggests  that  he  has  individuality  of  his 
own ;  for  it  is  not  successively  that  we  dimly  think  of  these 
other  painters,  of  one  of  them  before  one  of  his  pictures, 
and  of  another  before  another  picture,  but  they  all  flit  before 
us  when  we  look  at  any  one  of  his  works.  But  his  design, 
sometimes  too  obviously  worked  out,  and  his  colour  are  his 
own  despite  what  they  may  recall.  And  so  is  his  treatment 
of  mythical  and  legendary  subjects.     We  do  not  think  of 


312  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

primitive  man  in  connexion  with  the  paintings  of  the  three 
older  artists ;  but  it  is  to  a  time  when  man  was  naked  and 
not  ashamed  that  Mr.  Shannon  takes  us  back.  He  idealises 
the  Stone  Age — shall  we  sayl  Or,  perhaps,  this  is  too 
definite,  it  is  the  far-ojff  Golden  Age  which  he  does  not  idealise, 
but  merely  realises,  and  precisely  because  it  never  was  real. 
Once,  at  least.  Watts  did  go  back  to  primitive  man  when  he 
painted  the  picture  of  that  great  leap  in  the  dark,  the  first 
eating  of  an  oyster !  But  his  gods  and  goddesses  and  his 
nymphs  are  usually  civilised  people  for  all  their  unclothed- 
ness.  Mr.  Shannon,  even  when  he  finds  his  way  into  the 
full  civilisation  of  the  Kenaissance,  does  not  get  far  away 
from  the  elemental  and  so  often  uncontrolled  passions  of 
mankind.  Mr.  Greiffenhagen's  Tlie  Sons  of  God  looked 
upon  the  Daughters  of  Men  is  so  powerful  that  the  sonorous- 
ness of  the  Biblical  language,  and  its  mystic  significance, 
seem  to  have  been  merely  transposed  from  sound  into 
colour.  Here  it  is  impossible  not  to  think  of  Watts,  but  by 
no  means  as  if  there  had  been  mere  imitation  or  plagiarism. 
His  Idyl  in  the  Liverpool  Art  Gallery,  strong  in  colour  and 
fine  in  draughtsmanship,  is  as  elemental — is  an  as  simply 
profound  interpretation  of  the  passionate  love  of  youth  and 
maiden — as  Madox  Brown's  Romeo  and  Juliet.  We  have 
got  far  away  now  from  the  cold  Classicism  of  Leighton  and 
Poynter,  further  still  from  the  merely  decorative  loveliness 
of  Albert  Moore ;  and  there  is  warmer  blood  here  than  that 
which  courses  along  the  veins  of  Mr.  Waterhouse's  people. 
We  must  now  pass  to  the  historical  and  genre  paintei-s 
who,  if  many  of  them  are  academic,  are  yet  not,  like  Alma 
Tadema,  classical  painters,  and  who  have  taken  their  subjects, 
like  the  Romanticists,  from  comparatively  recent  history  or 
modern  times. 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  313 

That  the  average  Englishman  likes  a  picture  to  tell  a 
story  has  become  a  commonplace.  He  thinks  none  the 
worse  of  the  story  if  it  have  a  moral.  The  print-seller 
knows  well  the  kind  of  picture  that  will  keep  a  crowd  in 
front  of  his  window.  Just  before  writing  these  lines  I  have 
seen  a  crowd  before  a  window  in  which  was  displayed 
Mr.  Frith's  Hogarth  arrested  as  a  Spy  and  taken  before  the 
Govei-nor  of  Calais.  The  painter  of  this  picture  is  a  link 
between  the  present  and  the  Pre-Raphaelite  past;  for  he 
was  born  in  1819,  and  was  elected  A.R.A.  in  1844.  He 
passed  into  full  membership  in  1852,  taking  the  place  made 
vacant  by  the  death  of  Turner.  He  had  thus  reached  the 
height  of  the  ambition  of  many  an  artist,  while  Holman 
Hunt  and  Millais  were  in  the  throes  of  their  struggle  for  a 
realism  such  as  Frith  himself  had  never  attempted.  With- 
out comparing  the  two  as  artists,  we  can  still  say  that  Frith 
is,  in  his  subjects  such  as  The  Derby  Day^  The  Railway 
Station^  The  Road  to  Ruin,  and  The  Race  for  Wealth,  a 
lineal  descendant  of  Hogarth. 

But  it  is  only  as  a  link  in  the  chain  that  he  is  mentioned 
here.  Along  with  him  Ave  think,  of  course,  of  Maclise, 
C.  R.  Leslie,  E.  M.  Ward,  Mulready,  T.  AYebster,  J.  C. 
Horsley,  P.  F.  Poole,  and  others,  men  who,  if  they  lived  on 
into  the  second  half  of  the  century,  merely  brought  over 
with  them  an  earlier  tradition.  One  thing  the  Pre-Raphael- 
ites  set  themselves  to  do  was  to  get  to  a  higher  level 
of  historical  and  genre  painting  than  these  men  had 
reached,  to  put  more  thought  and  passion  into  their  work. 
What  a  wide  difference  there  is  in  this  respect  between  a 
Shakespeare  picture  even  by  Maclise  and  one  by  Holman 
Hunt  or  Madox  Brown  ! 

But  a  younger  race  of  historical  and  genre  pictures  has 


314  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

followed  the  earlier  one,  and  that  quite  outside  the  ranks  of 
the  Pre-Raphaelites  and  their  successors.  Their  name  is 
almost  legion,  and  one  hardly  knows  where  to  begin,  how  to 
continue,  and  where  to  end.  Their  very  number  shows  how 
popular  is  the  kind  of  work  they  do.  Was  not  the  picture 
of  pictures,  from  this  standpoint,  at  the  last  Academy 
Exhibition,  one  showing  how  the  Devil,  disguised  as  a 
troubadour,  and  having  been  hospitably  entertained  by  some 
nuns,  in  gratitude  sang  to  them  a  song  of  love  ?  And  is  not 
the  painter  of  this  picture  now  an  Associate  of  the 
Academy  ?  It  is  so.  The  people  will  have  it  so ;  and  the 
Academy  lets  it  be  so.  If  they  be  wrong,  they  are  only 
wrong  at  one  extreme ;  while  the  people  who  will  have  the 
painter  only  paint  beautiful  things  that  don't  matter  merely 
for  the  sake  of  painting  them  beautifully,  are  wrong  at  the 
other  extreme.  Let  us  bravely  push  our  way  into  the 
crowd  of  historical  and  genre  painters. 

Here,  to  begin  with,  is  Mr.  Yeames,  who  has  painted 
Arthur  and  Hubert^  The  Death  of  Amy  Rohsart^  and  When 
did  you  last  see  your  father  ?  that  pathetic  picture  of  the 
young  Royalist  being  questioned  by  the  Parliamentarians  in 
his  father's  house.  The  painter,  beyond  the  skill  of  his 
craftsmanship,  has  invested  such  subjects  as  these  with 
human  interest.  And  the  time  is  far  off,  if  ever  it  is  to 
come,  when  painters  as  well  as  writers  will  not  wish  to 
picture  the  past. 

But  before  Mr.  Yeames — if  we  had  not  been  pushing 
our  way  into  a  crowd — ought  to  have  come  the  Scotch 
painter,  John  Pettie,  with  respect  to  whom  there  is  more  to 
be  said.  One  of  the  strong  influences  at  the  back  of  some 
of  the  Scotch  painting  of  our  time  was  the  colourist  John 
Phillip;    another  was   Robert  Scott  Lauder,  who  became 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  315 

teacher  at  the  Royal  Scottish  Academy  in  1850.  He  had  tra- 
velled abroad,  and  had  studied  the  Italian  painters,  Velasquez, 
and  Rubens.  In  Paris  he  had  seen  the  work  of  Delacroix. 
Among  his  pupils  at  Edinburgh  were  Pettie,  Mr.  Orchard- 
son,  and  Mr.  Peter  Graham.  He  trained  his  pupils  to  see — 
to  see  the  model  or  the  subject  as  a  whole,  in  all  its  relations 
of  colour  and  light  and  shade  and  form.  He  had  seen  that 
there  was  pictorial  unity  in  the  works  of  the  great  masters. 
Pettie  learned  the  lesson  well.  His  pictures  impress  us  by 
their  fulness  of  tone,  and  by  the  fine  colour-sense  they 
reveal.  The  blue  ribbon  of  the  garter  or  a  crimson  flower 
or  handkerchief  will  be  used  to  give  value  to  sober  yet  rich 
browns,  and  to  complete  the  colour-harmony.  Indeed, 
Whistler's  phraseology  might  be  applied  to  Pettie's  pictures, 
and  we  might  not  only  speak  of  their  harmony,  but  of  them 
as  harmonies.  Though  he  painted  historical  pictures  with 
dramatic  subjects,  he  was  always  the  artist — the  word  being 
taken  to  mean  one  who  knows  how  to  get  a  fine  sensuous 
efiect  out  of  his  pigments.  There  is  atmospheric  imity  also 
in  his  pictures.  His  figures  never  become  mere  puppets, 
and  to  take  but  two  or  three  examples,  his  James  II  spurn- 
ing the  grovelling  Monmouth,  and  his  Prince  Charles,  are 
both  good  studies  of  character;  and  if  the  bearer  of  the 
challenge  of  Laertes  to  Hamlet  were  such  a  gaily-apparelled 
and  fatuous-looking  dandy  as  we  see  in  Pettie's  Water-fly^ 
Hamlet  could  certainly  have  chosen  no  better  nickname 
for  him. 

Mr.  Seymour  Lucas  received  his  training  in  the  Royal 
Academy  schools.  He  saw  and  was  attracted  by  Sir  Richard 
Wallace's  Meissoniers,  so  familiar  now  to  visitors  to  the 
Hertford  House  collections,  and  he  was  also  greatly  im- 
pressed by  the  work  of  Pettie.     He  shows  himself  a  clever 


3i6  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

academic  painter  of  historical  incident  in  The  Armada  in 
Sights  After  Culloden,  Rebel  Hunting^  The  Surrender  of 
Don  Pedro  de  Valdez  to  Di'ake  on  Board  the  Revenge,  and 
other  pictures;  and  he  has  also  painted  subjects  that  are 
on  the  borderland  between  history  and  genre.  This  is  the 
province  of  Mr.  Dendy  Sadler  also,  in  such  pictures  as 
Thursday  and  A  Good  Story  in  the  Tate  Gallery,  and  In 
the  Oamp  of  the  AmaleJcites,  now  at  Manchester.  Historical, 
principally  military,  subjects  have  occupied  Mr.  Eyre 
Crowe,  Mr.  A.  C.  Gow,  and  Mr.  Ernest  Crofts,  the  work 
of  Mr.  Gow  being  often  reminiscent  of  that  of  Meissonier. 
The  battle  pictures  of  Lady  Butler  should  also  be  men- 
tioned here.  Mr.  F.  D.  Millet,  an  American  by  birth,  and 
trained  in  Antwerp,  has  painted  subjects  in  historical  genre, 
of  which  the  best  known  is  the  picture  in  the  Tate  Gallery, 
Beticeen  Two  Fnes,  where  a  Puritan  is  being  raked  fore 
and  aft  by  the  merry  wit  of  two  pretty  serving-maids. 

Mr.  E.  A.  Abbey  is  another  American  painter,  but  by 
accepting  membership  in  the  Royal  Academy  he  has 
definitely  attached  himself  to  the  English  school  of  paint- 
ing, and  has  strongly  influenced  some  of  our  younger 
painters.  He  began  as  an  illustrator,  and  it  was  to  find 
material  for  illustrations  to  Herrick's  poems  that  he  first 
came  to  England.  There  is  much  affinity  between  his  oil 
paintings  and  the  mural  painting  of  the  Flemish  masters, 
and  he  often  calls  to  mind  Madox  Brown  and  the  realistic 
side  of  pre-Raphaelitism.  He  is  a  daring  colourist,  or,  it 
might  be  better  to  say,  he  uses  colour  daringly,  in  masses 
that  stand  out  separately  from  each  other,  so  that  if  Ave 
had  to  seek  for  a  parallel  in  the  sister  art  of  music  it  would 
not  be  of  harmony  or  sympathy  that  we  should  think,  as 
with  his  fellow-countryman  Whistler,  but,  say,  of  a  fanfare 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  317 

of  trumpets.  Such  use  of  colour  is  quite  in  keeping  with 
the  subjects  of  his  pictures,  which  are,  for  the  most 
part,  intensely  dramatic  scenes  from  history  in  the  days 
when  costume  was  nothing  less  than  brilliant.  Such  are 
Richard  III  and  Lady  Anne,  The  Penance  of  Eleanor, 
Duchess  of  Gloucester,  The  Trial  of  Queen  Katlierine,  The 
Crvsadei-8,  and  Columbus  in  the  Neio  World.  He  is  a  vivid 
story-teller ;  and  if  his  art  be  at  times  bizarre,  it  is  art  none 
the  less. 

These,  with  some  of  the  artists  already  referred  to  as 
belonging  to  the  pre-Raphaelite  succession,  and,  above  all, 
Ford  Madox  Brown,  are  the  chief  historical  painters  of  our 
period.  Whatever  differences  there  may  be  between  them 
they  are  united  in  one  respect,  quite  characteristic  of  the 
time,  namely,  carefulness  with  regard  to  accuracy  in  details. 
Architecture,  furniture,  dress,  weapons,  etc.,  are  studied 
with  the  zest  of  an  antiquary.  Art  must  now  go  hand-in- 
hand  with  science,  and  need  not  cease  to  be  art  in  so 
doing.  These  painters  are  the  immediate  successors  of  Dyce, 
Maclise,  Goodall,  Frith,  Sir  John  Gilbert,  and  others ; 
successors,  even  though  some  of  the  older  men  have  out- 
lived some  of  the  younger  ones.  Mr.  Frith  should  strictly, 
perhaps,  be  placed  among  the  genre  painters,  to  whom  we 
now  come,  the  successors  of  such  painters  as  Sir  David 
Wilkie,  Mulready,  the  elder  Leslie,  and  Thomas  Webster. 

First  among  these  we  will  take  George  Mason  and 
Frederick  Walker,  who  were  close  kinsmen  in  art.  It  is 
difficult,  indeed,  not  to  think  of  them  as  being  just  about 
the  same  age ;  yet  the  former  was  born  in  1818,  and  the 
latter  in  1840;  they  died,  however,  within  three  years  of 
each  other,  Mason  in  1872  and  Walker  in  1875.  Neither 
of  them  was  robust,  and  this  may  largely  account  for  the 


3i8  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

almost  pathetically  idyllic  character  of  their  art.  They 
both  treated  the  same  kind  of  subject,  and  in  much  the 
same  way :  they  read  their  own  feelings  into  the  life  of 
the  common  folk. 

Mason  was  greatly  influenced  by  Leighton.  He  was  a 
native  of  Wetley,  in  Staffordshire,  and  was  intended  for 
the  medical  profession,  in  preparation  for  which  he  walked 
the  hospitals  at  Birmingham.  He  was  in  Italy,  having 
decided  to  leave  medicine  for  art,  when  he  heard  that  his 
father  had  lost  all  his  money,  and  he  at  once  began  to  work 
hard  at  painting.  He  was  now  twenty-seven  years  old. 
Thrown  upon  his  own  resources  he  suffered  great  priva- 
tions which  told  on  his  health.  A  Staffordshire  friend 
whom  he  met  in  Italy  bought  pictures  from  him,  and  he 
was  also  much  encouraged  by  Leighton,  whom  he  met  in 
Rome.  In  1855  he  retui'ned  to  England,  married,  and 
went  to  live  at  the  old  house  of  the  family,  Wetley  Abbey. 
Once  more  he  had  a  hard  struggle;  he  was  almost  in 
poverty,  and  there  was  a  family  to  keep.  Leighton  came 
to  his  help  again,  by  visiting  him,  and  pointing  out  to  him 
the  beauty  and  pictorial  possibilities  of  his  immediate  sur- 
roundings. The  results  of  this  influence  are  often  evident 
in  his  pictures,  in  which  the  figures  at  times  look  as  if 
they  had  stepped  from  Leighton's  classical  scenes  into  an 
English  countryside.  Leighton  also  helped  him  with  com- 
missions, some  for  himself,  and  others  that  he  had  obtained 
from  friends,  and  on  account  of  which  he  managed  to  per- 
suade Mason  to  accept  money  in  advance. 

Thus  helped,  both  in  the  practice  of  his  art  and  finan- 
cially. Mason  set  to  work  courageously.  The  landscape  in 
his  pictures  shows  how  successful  Leighton  had  been  as 
an  interpreter.     The  country  about  Wetley  has  no  special 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  319 

beauty,  but  there  are  wide  vistas  on  the  higher  lands,  there 
are  commons  and  pools  and  scanty  woods  with  gnarled  and 
twisted  trees,  and  there  are  the  sun  and  the  moon,  and 
the  sweet  mystery,  touched  always  with  sadness,  of  the 
twilight.  When  Mason  saw  and  felt  all  this,  and  painted 
the  labouring  folk  and  the  children  amidst  it,  and  gave 
them  a  grace  and  refinement  they  did  not  actually  possess, 
he  was  not  cheaply  idealising,  he  was  only  expressing  his  sense 
of  the  beauty  of  human  life  lived  face  to  face  with  nature. 

And,  of  course,  the  beauty  is  there.  Mason's  idealism 
is  only  an  impassioned  statement  of  the  truth.  At  times 
there  is  no  exaggeration,  as  in  The  Cast  Shoe  and  The  End 
of  the  Day.  The  maidens  in  The  Evening  Hymn  may  be 
too  idyllic;  and  yet  that  hymn,  when  deeply  felt,  almost 
seems  to  transform  both  face  and  figure.  The  exaltation 
of  the  moment  is  expressed  by  the  grace  of  the  maidens 
singing  as  they  cross  the  common.  Perhaps  we  are  a  little 
too  much  reminded  of  Greek  heroes  and  the  most  graceful 
Tanagra  figures  in  The  Harvest  Moon.  Yet,  doubtless, 
many,  like  the  writer,  having  Mr.  Macbeth's  etching  of 
the  picture,  and  nature,  with  its  changing  seasons,  always 
near  them,  have  felt  the  truth,  the  beautiful  truth,  of  the 
picture  utterly  to  outweigh  any  difficulty  occasioned  by  the 
ideal  character  of  the  harvesters. 

The  colour  in  Mason's  pictures  is  beautifully  modulated 
and  harmonised,  and  has  nature's  glow  and  vibration  in  it. 
Th^  Harvest  Moon  is  perhaps  less  satisfying  in  this  respect 
than  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  others. 

In  1868  he  was  elected  A.R.A. ;  but  the  struggle  of 
earlier  years  had  undermined  his  constitution,  and  four 
years  later  he  died  of  heart  disease. 

Frederick  Walker  first  exhibited  a  picture  at  the  Academy 


330  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  1867,  the  year  before  Mason  was  elected  to  an  associate- 
ship.  It  was  The  Bathers ;  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  see 
in  the  figures  of  these  boys  upon  the  river-bank  the  result  of 
his  study  of  the  Greek  marbles  in  the  British  Museum.  It 
is  as  if  the  youths  of  the  Parthenon  frieze  had  escaped  and 
gone  to  bathe  in  an  English  river.  Before  this  time  he  had 
been  making  drawings  for  wood-engraving.  After  The 
Bathers  came  The  Vagrants ;  and  again  there  is  something 
too  much  of  the  heroic  in  the  figures.  In  The  Plough  the 
ploughman  is  a  lithe,  graceful  athlete,  striding  out  vigor- 
ously, as  if  he  were  helping  the  horses  in  their  work  as  well 
as  doing  his  own  work  of  guidance.  Probably  by  this  time 
all  who  care  for  Walker's  art  have  agreed  to  accept  this 
overstatement  which  appears  in  all  his  work.  It  may  not 
correspond  with  the  facts,  but  it  did  correspond  with  his 
feeling.  It  is  far  removed  from  the  mere  shepherd's  crook 
pastoral.  Life  has  been  felt,  if  not  literally  seen,  like  this ; 
and  the  departure  from  the  literal  truth  is  not  a  wide  one. 
We  come  to  the  same  conclusion  about  him  as  about  George 
Mason. 

His  best-known  picture  is,  of  course,  Tlie  Harbour  of 
Refuge.  It  is  an  idyU  of  the  close  of  life  contrasted  with 
life  in  its  strength,  and  the  man  who  is  mowing  the  grass  of 
the  almshouse  court  may  well  have  been  intended  as  a 
symbol.  Ruskin  had  little  that  was  good  to  say  of  Walker's 
art.  He  disliked  his  grey  skies.  He  would  make  no  excuse 
for  the  idealised  figures,  which  he  described  as  "  got  up  for 
the  stage,"  and  this  particular  mower  he  called  ridiculous, 
and  "  galvanised  Elgin  marble  in  his  attitude,  and  the  sweep 
of  the  scythe  utterly  out  of  drawing  by  the  way."  As 
already  said,  Walker  died  in  1875  a  victim  to  consumption. 
He  was  only  thirty -five  years  of  age. 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  321 

The  work  of  these  two  painters  still  retains  its  hold  upon 
us.  In  one  sense  ^Millet  and  Josef  Israels  may  have  been 
more  true.  They  are  at  least  more  literal.  But  there  is  a 
deeper  than  the  literal  truth.  Wliat  is  artificial,  borrowed, 
in  the  idealism  of  Mason  and  Walker,  is  a  weakness,  and 
there  is  perhaps  more  of  this  in  the  art  of  the  latter  than 
in  that  of  the  former.  But  what  is  the  outcome  of  feeling 
is  a  strength,  and  this  far  outweighs  the  other. 

Such  art  as  that  of  Mason  and  AValker,  beautiful  as  art, 
and  gently  playing  on  the  minor  chords  of  feeling,  was 
bound  to  influence  other  painters;  and  it  is  not  only  the 
work  itself  that  lives  in  general  esteem,  but  its  influence 
continues  in  our  art. 

George  H.  Boughton  has  been  called  a  follower  of 
Frederick  Walker ;  and  with  many  differences  there  is  this 
general  resemblance  between  them  that  they  gave  an  idyllic 
account  of  ordinary  life.  Born  in  1834,  he  was  an  English- 
man who,  as  his  parents  took  him  to  America  when  he  was 
only  three  years  old,  and  as  his  early  training  was  received 
there,  is  sometimes  regarded  as  an  American  artist.  He  had 
little  regular  teaching.  The  sale  of  a  picture  to  the  Albany 
Art  Union  enabled  him  to  visit  England  when  he  was  only 
seventeen,  and  a  little  later  he  went  to  Paris.  There  he  got 
help  from  various  painters,  particularly  Edouard  Fr6re,  and, 
after  working  for  a  time  in  Normandy  and  Brittany,  he 
migrated  to  London,  where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life. 
Mr.  Isham,  in  the  book  already  quoted,  says  that  although 
Boughton  was  bom  in  England,  and  returned  here  while 
young,  he  belonged  more  to  America  than  mere  dates 
suggest.  He  exhibited  in  American  exhibitions,  found 
patrons  there,  the  spirit  of  his  art  was  formed  there,  many 
of  his  subjects  were  taken  from  the  life  of  the  early  colonists. 


322  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

"Even  his  Holland  pictures,  when  they  came,"  says  Mr. 
Isham,  "seemed  to  be  a  reversion  to  the  old  Dutch  tradi- 
tions of  Albany  and  knickerbockcr  New  York.  It  is  a  pity 
that  a  still  stronger  plea  for  his  Americanism  cannot  be 
made,  for  Boughton's  art  is  of  a  sort  so  sweet  and  whole- 
some that  one  would  willingly  annex  it  if  one  could."  The 
impossibility  of  such  annexation  can  only  be  cause  for 
rejoicing  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  for  there  was  great 
charm  in  Boughton's  work,  both  in  his  landscape  and  in  his 
figure-subjects.  It  was  the  personal  note  in  it  that  allied 
him  to  Mason  and  Walker;  yet  it  was  not,  as  with  them, 
a  pathetic  note,  but  one  of  delicacy  and  daintiness.  There 
was  distinction  in  his  cool  colour-harmonies,  and  in  his  com- 
position and  draughtsmanship.  As  the  bee  extracts  the  sweet- 
ness from  the  flower,  so  he  gathered  from  nature  and  from  life 
every  suggestion  they  gave  him  of  tender  beauty  and  grace. 
Mr.  Marcus  Stone,  born  in  1840,  belongs  to  this  genera- 
tion. He  received  his  instruction  in  art  from  his  father, 
Frank  Stone,  the  subject  painter.  After  painting  historical 
pictures  for  a  time,  he  turned  to  the  particular  form  of 
genre  that  he  has  made  his  own.  He  has  been  called  the 
painter  of  sweethearts.  Lovers'  joys  and  lovers'  hopes  and 
fears  and  sorrows  and  little  quarrels  are  the  chief  subject  of 
his  pictures,  the  scene  of  which  is  almost  invariably  laid  in 
old-fashioned  gardens,  while  the  lovers  are  dressed  in  what 
now  look  to  us  quaint  costumes.  These  expedients  aid  the 
sentimental  effect.  The  colour  of  the  pictures  also  is 
dainty;  there  are  plenty  of  green  garden  seats  and  pink 
flowers  in  vases.  Everything  looks  as  if  the  requirements 
of  the  most  elementary  taste,  and  the  necessities  of  repro- 
duction in  colour,  had  never  been  overlooked.  He  is  super- 
ficial where  Boughton  was  subtle. 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  323 

Mr.  William  Quiller  Orchardson  must  be  counted  amongst 
the  genre  painters;  though  one  of  his  best-known  works, 
Napoleon  on  Board  the  Bellerophon^  is  a  fine  example  of 
imaginative  historical  painting ;  and  he  has  also  distinguished 
himself  as  a  portrait  painter.  Born  in  Edinburgh  in  1835, 
he  was  a  fellow-student  of  John  Pettie  and  Mr.  Peter 
Graham  under  Robert  Scott  Lauder  at  the  Trustees' 
Academy.  The  character  of  Lauder's  teaching,  his  insistence 
upon  seeing  a  subject  as  a  whole,  has  already  been  alluded 
to ;  and  its  influence  is  obvious  in  the  breadth  of  treatment, 
the  unity  of  tone  and  harmony  of  colour,  that  mark  all 
Mr.  Orchardson's  work.  He  settled  in  London  in  1862,  he 
and  Pettie  living  together  for  a  time ;  and  his  pictures  have 
for  all  these  years  been  regularly-expected  items  in  the 
Royal  Academy  exhibitions. 

A  picture  by  him  is  recognised  in  an  exhibition  almost 
before  it  is  seen;  its  pervading  golden  tone  tells  us  it  is 
there  before  we  have  actually  reached  and  looked  at  it. 
Because  of  the  broad  treatment  of  colour  to  which  they 
lend  themselves,  he  has  chosen  for  many  of  his  subject- 
pictures  the  dress,  furniture,  and  decoration  of  the  period 
of  the  French  Directoire;  and  even  when  his  subject 
belongs  to  another  time,  and  also  in  his  portraiture,  he  has 
only  modified,  not  changed,  his  general  colour-scheme. 

In  his  choice  of  subjects  he  has  limited  himself  almost 
entirely  to  the  spoiled  children  of  civilisation.  Elegantly 
dressed  people,  amid  luxurious  surroundings,  are  the  staple 
of  his  art.  Of  such  is  the  young  girl  timorously  essaying 
her  first  dance,  under  the  eyes  of  friends,  and  perhaps 
rivals,  who  are  following  her  every  movement  with  interest. 
Under  the  archway  of  unsheathed  weapons  the  queen  of 
swords  walks  with  due  stateliness,  the  other  ladies  following 


324  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  her  train.  The  young  duke  hears  with  self-complacent 
smile  the  noisy  applause  of  his  guests  as  they  drink  to  his 
health.  The  ruined  card-player  pauses  at  the  door,  as  if  he 
would  fain  reverse  his  fate,  while  the  winners  almost  wear 
the  air  of  culprits  as  they  watch  his  departure.  Voltaire 
returning  to  the  dinner- table  of  the  Due  de  Sully,  after 
being  thrashed  by  the  lackeys  of  the  Due  de  Rohan,  who 
thus  took  vengeance  for  Voltaire's  bitter  sarcasms,  is  the 
subject  of  another  picture ;  and  in  another  we  see  Madame 
R(5camier  doing  the  honours  of  her  sal(m.  The  Mariage 
de  Convenance,  The  First  Cloudy  and  Alone  are  refined,  up-to- 
date  versions  of  Hogarth.  Her  Mothefs  Voice  is  an 
elegant,  after-dinner  account  of  the  widower's  dream  which 
Longfellow  tells  of  the  village  blacksmith ;  for  the  deepest 
joys,  and  the  tenderest  regrets  and  hopes,  are  confined  to 
no  one  class  of  society,  but  are  the  human  endowment 
of  rich  and  poor  alike.  And  this  thought  makes  it  possible 
to  regret  that  Mr.  Orchardson  should  have  taken  no  cog- 
nisance of  any  world  but  one  into  which  the  blacksmith 
could  only  come,  cap  in  hand,  and  after  very  carefully 
wiping  his  boots  on  the  mat.  He  comes  perilously  near  to 
a  confusion  of  taste  and  refinement  with  mere  expensive- 
ness.  The  upholsterer,  the  tailor,  and  the  dressmaker  are 
too  much  in  evidence;  and  this  is  not  without  bearing  on 
his  art,  which  achieves  success  within  very  narrow  limits  of 
light  and  colour.  He  ventures  nothing,  but  remains  content 
with  a  formula  that  we  are  inclined  to  call  a  recipe. 

Now,  perhaps,  we  should  come  to  Frank  Holl  and  Sir 
Luke  Fildes,  both  of  whom  have  also  been  portrait  painters, 
the  former  almost  challenging  comparison  with  the  best  in 
his  fine  characterisation  of  such  men  as  Gladstone,  Earl 
Spencer,  Lord  Duiferin,  Samuel  Cousins  the  engraver,  and 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  325 

others.  His  genre  pictures  are  quite  of  the  popularly 
pathetic  kind,  to  which  Millais  said  he  had  not  stooped. 
The  Lord  gave  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  aioay  ;  blessed  he  the 
Name  of  the  Lord  shows  a  family,  from  whom  the  mother 
has  been  taken,  seated  or  kneeling  at  the  table,  while  the 
clergyman  stands  and  prays.  No  News  from  the  Sea^  Hushy 
and  Hushed,  in  the  Tate  Gallery,  Leaving  Home  and  Ordered 
to  the  Front,  as  their  titles  will  suggest  to  those  who  have 
seen  neither  the  originals  nor  reproductions  of  them,  are  of 
the  same  kind.  They  are  competently  painted  pathetic 
incidents. 

Holl,  who  was  born  in  1845,  died  at  the  early  age  of 
forty-three.  Sir  Luke  Fildes,  who  was  born  in  1844 — they 
were  both  trained  in  the  Academy  Schools — has  struck  the 
same  note  as  Holl  in  his  well-known  picture  Th^  Doctor. 
In  other  pictures,  such  as  An  al  fresco  Toilet,  Venetians,  and 
TTie  Village  Wedding,  he  is  in  a  lighter  vein.  Mr.  George 
Moore  pours  scorn  on  Manchester  for  purchasing  Venetians, 
when  it  had  managed  to  do  so  well  as  to  acquire  Cecil 
Lawson's  landscape  The  Minislei''s  Garden,  and  describes 
The  Doctor  as  "  bald  illustration."  Others  have  seen  in  the 
picture  intense  realism  and  yet  high  imagination,  and  have 
regarded  it  as  "  a  symbol  of  the  struggle  between  Science 
and  Death."  Mr.  Moore  calls  Rossetti's  Dante's  Dream 
imaginative  interpretation;  but  he  will  have  nothing  to 
do  with  a  plain  representation  of  a  doctor  intently  watchmg 
a  sick  child  just  at  the  crisis  of  its  illness,  while  the  mother 
buries  her  head  in  her  arms,  and  the  father,  standing  with 
one  hand  laid  affectionately  on  her  shoulder,  looks  anxiously 
towards  the  doctor  and  the  child.  "Rossetti  is  a  painter 
we  admire,"  says  Mr.  Moore,  "  and  we  place  him  above  Mr. 
Fildes,  because  his  interpretations  are  more  imaginative." 


326         I  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  Doctor  was  not  intended  to  be  bald  illustration ;  the 
artist's  idea  was,  quoting  his  own  words,  "  to  put  on  record 
the  status  of  the  doctor  of  our  own  time,"  than  whom  **no 
more  noble '  figure  could  be  imagined — the  grave  anxiety, 
supported  by  calm  assurance  in  his  own  knowledge  and 
skill,  not  put  forward  in  any  self-sufficient  way,  but  with 
dignity  and  patience,  following  out  the  course  his  experi- 
ence tells  him  is  correct ;  the  implicit  faith  of  the  parents, 
who,  although  deeply  moved  and  almost  overcome  with 
terrible  dread,  stand  in  the  background  trusting  the  doctor 
even  while  their  hearts  fail." 

We  are  intended  to  think,  so  the  painter  has  also  said, 
that  the  child  is  going  to  recover,  that  the  doctor's  skill  will 
triumph.  But  the  picture  itself  does  not  suggest  this;  there 
is  in  it  only  the  anguish  of  uncertainty ;  for  we  know  that 
often  the  doctor's  skill  is  unavailing.  That  is  to  say,  we 
know  that  this  doctor  may  have  to  tell  the  father  and 
mother  that  the  child  cannot  recover.  The  real  subject  of 
the  picture,  that  which  moves  us  in  it,  is  the  pathos  of  love 
face  to  face  with  death.  It  is  to  the  man  and  his  wife  in 
the  background,  not  to  the  doctor  in  the  foreground,  that  our 
thought  and  sympathy  go.  The  painter  says  that  no  more 
noble  figure  can  be  imagined  than  the  doctor  of  our  time. 
We  need  not  discuss  this  statement.  It  is  sufficient  to  note 
that,  in  the  picture,  the  doctor  and  his  skill,  and  the  nobility 
that  attaches  to  them,  have  to  compete  for  our  interest  with 
the  love  of  a  father  and  a  mother  for  their  child,  and  utterly 
fail  to  hold  their  own  against  it.  Technically  the  picture  is 
a  competent  piece  of  matter-of-fact  realism,  making  no  appeal 
to  the  sense  of  beauty,  and  leaving  nothing  to  the  imagina- 
tion. 

Mr.  Frank  Bramley  is  a  much  younger  painter  than  Sir 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BR  17  A  IN  327 

Luke  Fildcs,  and  than  others  we  shall  have  to  mention,  but 
his  Tate  Gallery  picture,  A  Hopeless  Dawn,  is  called  to  mind 
by  the  things  we  have  just  been  discussing.  Here,  again, 
we  have  what  may  be  styled  a  bald  illustration,  a  realistic 
picture  of  the  cottage  to  which  the  fisherman  for  whom  the 
supper  has  been  prepared,  and  for  whose  help  the  light  has 
been  put  in  the  window,  will  never  return ;  while  the  aged 
mother  seeks  to  console  the  young  wife,  and  the  Bible  lies 
open  in  the  window-seat.  The  picture  is  a  direct  appeal  to 
the  simplest  yet  most  profound  emotions,  and  the  skill 
with  which  the  appeal  is  made  could  hardly  be  bettered. 
Consolation  is  suggested,  and  of  the  kind  such  people  will 
seek  and  find.  There  is  the  open  Bible ;  on  the  wall  is  a 
print  of  Raphael's  cartoon  of  Christ  delivering  His  charge 
to  St.  Peter.  This  picture  had  a  literary  origin.  The 
subject,  its  title,  and  the  print  on  the  wall  were  all  sug- 
gested by  one  of  Ruskin's  eloquent  passages  in  the  Har- 
bours of  Enrjlandy  in  which  he  turns  from  the  joy  and 
beauty  of  the  beach  and  the  fishing-boats,  to  storm,  and 
suspense,  and  death;  "and  still  at  the  helm  of  every 
lonely  boat,  through  starless  night  and  hopeless  dawn.  His 
hand,  who  spread  the  fisher's  net  over  the  dust  of  the 
Sidonian  palaces,  and  gave  into  the  fisher's  hand  the  keys  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven."  In  later  years  Mr.  Bramley  has 
chosen  less  sorrowful  themes. 

By  this  time  we  ought  to  be  finding  Sir  Hubert  Her- 
komer  in  the  crowd.  He  has  already  been  mentioned  as  a 
German  who  learned  his  art  in  this  country.  He  was  born 
in  1849  at  "Waal,  near  Landsberg,  in  Bavaria,  where  hia 
father  was  a  master-joiner.  He  was  only  two  years  old 
when  the  family  migrated  to  America ;  six  years  later  they 
came  to  England,  making  their  home  at  Southampton.     The 


328  PIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTmC 

father  had  intended  his  son  to  be  an  artist ;  but  it  was  only 
by  the  most  rigid  economy  that  he  could  achieve  his 
purpose.  After  a  visit  to  Bavaria,  in  connexion  with  some 
wood-carving  the  father  was  commissioned  to  do,  the  family 
returned  to  England,  made  their  home  at  Wandsworth,  and 
the  youth  studied  art  in  the  South  Kensington  schools. 
He  only  managed  to  get  along  by  selling  drawings  to  the 
Graphic  and  Fun^  and  by  stencilling  a  frieze  in  the  South 
Kensington  Museum  for  a  wage  of  ninepence  an  hour. 
Gradually  he  began  to  sell  his  water-colour  drawings,  and, 
in  1873,  his  oil  painting,  After  the  Toil  of  the  Day,  was 
hung  on  the  line  at  the  Academy  and  found  a  purchaser  at 
£500.  Success  was  now  assured.  In  the  following  year  he 
exhibited  The  Last  Muster,  which  received  an  ovation  from 
the  Hanging  Committee  at  the  Academy,  and  was  a  great 
popular  success.  The  old  pensioners  are  at  service  in  their 
chapel.  One  of  them  is  suddenly  taken  ill.  A  comrade 
touches  him  on  the  arm  and  looks  anxiously  at  him.  The 
anxiety  is  well-founded.  The  veteran  has  joined  his  com- 
rades for  the  last  time. 

Not  for  once  only,  in  this  picture,  has  Sir  Herkomer 
struck  the  pathetic  note.  Again  and  again  he  has  done  so, 
taking  sickness,  poverty,  or  old  age  as  the  subject-matter 
of  his  pictures.  We  have  sickness  in  the  Convalescent^ 
poverty  in  Hard  Times,  old  age  in  Charterhouse  Chapel,  Der 
Bittgang,  and  other  pictures.  There  is  pathos  even  in  The 
Guards^  Cheer.  In  this  he  shows  the  influence  of  Fred 
Walker,  which  was  particularly  marked  in  his  earlier  work. 
Subsequently,  when  his  canvases  have  become  more  fully 
occupied  with  figures,  which,  though  playing  their  part  in  a 
drama,  have  assumed  the  character  and  importance  of  por- 
traiture, the  resemblance  in  the  work  of  the  two  artists  has 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  3^9 

diminished;  while  from  portraiture  in  subject-pictures,  as 
notably  in  Charlerhouse  Chapel^  Sir  Herkomer  has  easily 
passed  to  portraiture  pure  and  simple.  His  versatile  accom- 
plishment, which  has  led  to  excursions  into  many  arts  and 
crafts,  needs  no  more  than  mention  here.  In  painting,  with 
which  alone  we  are  concerned  here,  he  is  an  able  craftsman, 
who  has  placed  considerable  gifts  of  design,  colour,  and 
characterisation  at  the  service  of  realistic  interpretation  of 
life. 

It  must  suffice  merely  to  mention  here  the  refined  charm 
of  the  art  of  Mr.  G.  D.  Leslie  and  the  Venetian  studies  of 
Mr.  Henry  "Woods ;  while  Mr.  G.  A.  Storey  should  not  go 
unnamed.  The  Hon.  John  Collier's  genre  pictures,  drawn 
from  different  periods,  their  dramatic  interest  not  seldom 
bordering  on  the  sensational,  while  their  academic  accom- 
plishment is  always  to  be  relied  upon,  also  are  too  familiar 
to  require  more  than  mention.  Mr.  J.  R.  Reid,  born  in 
Edinburgh  in  1851,  has  mingled  landscape  and  figure  in  his 
pictures  of  open-air  life,  chiefly  by  the  sea.  He  is  a  vigorous 
painter,  who  bravely  faces  the  problems  of  brilliant  light 
and  strong  colour.  Mr.  E.  J.  Gregory,  born  in  1850,  is  a 
fastidious  craftsman,  who  has  applied  remarkable  powers  of 
realistic  painting  largely  to  boating  scenes  on  the  Thames, 
with,  in  the  end,  it  must  be  said,  a  somewhat  commonplace 
result.  It  is  not  possible  to  be  interested  in  his  holiday 
makers,  and  his  treatment  of  landscape  is  without  imagina- 
tion. 

A  few  years  later  comes  Mr.  Stanhope  Forbes,  a  prominent 
member  of  the  little  company  of  artists  who  settled  at 
Newlyn  in  Cornwall,  there  to  work  in  the  open  air.  Born 
in  Dublin  in  1857,  Mr.  Forbes  studied  at  Dulwich,  in  the 
Lambeth   School  of   Art  and   the  Academy  Schools,  and 


330  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

subsequently  under  Bonnat  in  Paris.  He  joined  the  Newlyn 
painters  in  1884,  Mr.  Walter  Langley  being  the  first  of  those 
who  had  preceded  him  there.  It  is  not  possible  to  suggest 
a  regret,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Orchardson,  that  Mr.  Forbes 
has  limited  himself  to  a  social  sphere  in  which  the  black- 
smith would  not  feel  at  home;  for  it  is  chiefly  into  the 
company  of  people  in  whose  society  the  blacksmith  would 
be  quite  comfortable  that  Mr.  Forbes  takes  us.  It  is  dis- 
tinctly a  prose  version  of  their  life  that  he  gives,  whether 
he  paints  fishermen,  village  musicians,  a  village  wedding,  an 
auction-sale,  or  what  else.  His  colour  also  is  usually  very 
sober,  not  to  say  dull.  The  equable  grey  climate  of  Corn- 
wall, allowing  the  study  of  the  model  in  difi'used  daylight, 
is  said  to  have  been  one  thing  that  attracted  the  painters  to 
Newlyn.  There  is  an  excess  of  equable  greyness  in  Mr. 
Forbes's  pictures.  The  open  air  has  become  a  roofless  studio, 
but  it  is  still  a  studio. 

Mr.  H.  S.  Tuke  is  also  one  of  the  Newly n  group ;  though 
he  has  painted  much  at  Falmouth,  and  no  charge  of  greyness 
can  be  brought  against  his  bright  pictures  of  yachting  and 
bathing  scenes.  He  was  born  at  York  in  1858,  and  studied 
at  the  Slade  School,  and  subsequently  under  Laurens  in 
Paris.  He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  New  English  Art 
Club,  of  which  more  will  be  said  hereafter.  While  Mr.  Frank 
Bramley,  who  also  Avent  to  Newlyn,  and  Mr.  Forbes,  have 
taken  the  work-a-day  world  for  their  subject,  Mr.  Tuke  has, 
in  the  main,  shown  us  English  youth  making  holiday  on  and 
by  the  sea. 

We  return  to  the  work-a-day  world  with  Mr.  George 
Clausen  and  Mr.  H.  H.  La  Thangue.  They  have  both  often 
been  compared  to  Bastien-Lepage ;  and  the  comparison  is 
certainly  a  fair  one,  particularly  with  regard  to  their  earlier 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  331 

work,  such  as  Mr.  Clausen's  The  Girl  at  the  Gate,  and  Mr. 
La  Thangue's  Tlie  Man  with  the  Scythe^  both  of  which  are 
in  tlie  Tate  Gallery. 

Mr.  Clausen,  who  is  of  Danish  descent,  was  born  in 
London  in  1852,  and,  during  the  time  that  he  was  working 
as  a  draughtsman  and  designer  for  a  firm  of  builders  and 
decorators,  he  attended  evening  classes  at  South  Kensing- 
ton. One  thinks  with  difficulty  of  his  having  worked  in 
the  studio  of  Edwin  Long.  He  was  one  of  the  first 
members  of  the  New  English  Art  Club,  the  promoters  of 
which  were  much  encouraged  by  his  support.  A  strong 
opponent  at  one  time  of  the  Royal  Academy,  he  is  now  one 
of  its  associates,  and  has  held  the  position  of  Professor  of 
Painting.  Until  quite  recently  he  has  lived  in  the  country, 
at  Widdington,  in  Essex,  amid  the  agriculturists,  who,  and 
whose  work  and  surroundings,  have  been  the  subject  of  his 
pictures. 

If  his  early  work  reminds  us  of  Bastien-Lepage,  in  his 
later  work  he  is  like  a  Millet  possessed  with  tlie  Impres- 
sionist zeal  for  light  and  atmosphere.  Like  Millet  he  has 
been  content  to  portray  the  peasantry  amid  whom  he  has 
lived,  engaged  in  their  ordinary  work,  apart  from  any 
special  incident.  Digging,  ploughing,  sowing,  reaping, 
binding  the  corn  into  sheaves,  building  the  stack,  threshing 
— in  short,  all  the  varied  work  of  the  farm  as  it  is  carried 
on  through  the  seasons  of  the  year  has  been  his  subject ; 
and  occasionally  he  has  painted  the  portraits  of  those  whose 
lives  are  passed  in  the  performance  of  these  fundamental 
human  tasks.  He  has  not  idealised  the  work  of  the  fields. 
Some  of  it  is  laborious,  monotonous,  mechanical,  and  he 
has  shown  it  thus.  In  one  picture  of  harvesters  at  work 
in  an  upland  field,  under  a  blazing  sun,  one  of  the  men. 


332  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

after  binding  up  a  sheaf,  is  moving  forward  to  gather  tlie 
corn  for  another  one.  He  is  staring  vacantly  before  him, 
his  thoughts  evidently  far  from  his  work ;  but  already  his 
arms  and  hands  are  instinctively  bent,  as  they  need  to  be, 
to  gather  the  corn  for  the  next  sheaf.  But  farm-work  is 
by  no  means  all  like  this;  it  is  more  varied  than  much 
town-work,  and  has  the  interest  of  dealing  with  plant-  and 
animal  life,  so  that  the  mere  representation  of  it  without 
idealism  or  the  fevered  townsman's  exaggeration  of  its 
"  slowness  "  is  a  worthy  task  for  art. 

Taking  a  cheerier  view  of  such  life  than  Millet  did, 
Mr.  Clausen  has  also  added  the  interest  of  keen  enjoyment 
of  the  beauty  of  light  and  atmospheric  effect.  Indeed,  these 
have  counted  for  so  much  in  his  art  as  to  bring  him  at  least 
close  to  the  border-line  that  divides  genre  from  landscape. 
Many  things  are  suggested  in  these  days  to  make  the  life 
of  the  agriculturist  more  interesting,  and  so  to  reduce  the 
exodus  from  the  country  to  the  town.  Better  housing, 
small  holdings,  reading-rooms,  and  billiard  tables :  some  of 
us  have  urged  these  things,  perhaps  helped  to  provide  them. 
Have  we  ventured  the  attempt  to  get  the  agriculturist  to 
see  himself  and  his  surroundings  as  the  artist  sees  them? 
It  is  a  task  from  which  even  the  brave  may  shrink.  Would 
the  ploughman  be  a  happier,  a  nobler  being,  if,  when  he 
paused  for  a  moment  at  the  headland,  he  could  see  that  his 
fellow-ploughman  in  the  next  field  made,  with  his  surround- 
ings, under  certain  conditions  of  light  and  shade,  a  beautiful 
picture  %  We  cannot  answer  such  a  question  in  the  negative 
without  giving  the  lie  to  our  own  experience.  We  cannot 
answer  it  in  the  affirmative  without  making  our  own  experi- 
ence more  authentic.  One  hopes  that  some  of  the  people 
among  whom  Mr.  Clausen  lived  for  years  are  now  enjoying 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  333 

life  more  because  they  have  learned,  through  him,  to  see 
themselves  and  their  surroundings  as  he  saw  them.  The 
point  is,  of  course,  that  Mr.  Clausen's  pictures  do  not  tell 
a  story  like  Sir  Luke  Fildes's  Doctor  and  Village  Wedding ; 
tliey  only  reveal  the  beauty  of  ordinary  scenes,  the  har- 
monies of  light  and  colour  and  form,  the  visible  music, 
which  the  mere  facts  present,  or  to  which  they  at  least 
approximate.  Sunlight  peeping  through  the  chinks  in  a 
barn,  suffusing  the  misty  morning  air  when  the  hoar  frost 
glistens  on  the  earth  and  the  trees,  blazing  behind  the  rick 
and  its  builders,  or  down  on  the  harvesters  while  a  dull 
heat-haze  lies  on  the  horizon;  the  warm  after-glow  in  the 
wintry  sky  with  the  snow  lying,  cold  grey  in  hue,  in  the 
shady  places:  such  are  the  quite  ordinary,  yet  beautiful 
efifects  which  to  those  who  have  learned  to  see  them  convert 
the  most  common-place  countryside  into  a  beautiful  paradise. 
These  are  the  things  that  Mr.  Clausen  has  seen  and  inter- 
preted ;  and,  seeing  them,  what  need  has  he  had  of  more  in 
the  way  of  story-telling  than  that  of  the  great  story  of 
human  toiU 

Mr.  La  Thangue,  born  in  1860,  studied  art  at  South 
Kensington,  the  Lambeth  School  of  Art,  and  later  in  the 
Academy  Schools.  Subsequently  he  worked  for  three  years 
in  Paris  in  the  studio  of  G^rome,  and  painted  for  a  time 
in  France.  Devoting  himself,  like  Mr.  Clausen,  to  the 
painting  of  workers  in  the  country,  he  has  found  his  sub- 
jects abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  His  methods  approximate 
to  those  of  the  Impressionists,  light  and  atmospheric  vibra- 
tion being  chief  considerations  with  him ;  yet,  on  the  whole, 
not  as  much  so  as  with  Mr.  Clausen ;  and  his  figures  occupy 
a  larger  part  of  the  canvas,  are  more  individualised,  and  the 
landscape  becomes  a  mere  setting  for  them.     Like  Mr. 


334  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Clausen  he  is  generally  content  with  ordinary  doings  and 
happenings,  with  the  tending  of  cattle,  the  driving  home 
of  the  plough-horses,  the  feeding  of  poultry,  the  gather- 
ing of  fruit,  the  working  of  the  cider-press.  So  far  as 
he  can  he  realises  such  things  in  the  full  strength  of 
nature's  light  and  colour.  Not  as  imaginative  as  that  of 
Mr.  Clausen,  his  work  is  still  a  revelation  of  beauty. 

Here  must  end  for  the  present  our  account  of  the  genre 
painters;  though  something  more  will  have  to  be  said  of 
them  in  the  next  chapter.  But  this  is  a  convenient  place 
to  look  at  their  work  from  a  particular  point  of  view.  To 
what  extent  has  the  work  of  our  genre  painters  of  the 
latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  been  a  chronicle  of 
their  timel  Have  they  been  comprehensive  in  their  see- 
ing and  recording,  or  have  they  merely  picked  and  chosen 
here  and  there?  The  answer  seems  to  be  that  they  have 
shrunk  from  the  recording  of  a  large  part  of  modern  life ; 
much  more  so  than  have  many  of  their  foreign  brethren. 
The  French  painters,  as  we  have  seen,  have  found  material 
for  their  art  in  the  ordinary  scenes  of  town  and  country 
alike.  Some  of  the  Belgians  have  made  the  record  of  such 
scenes  a  part  of  social  propaganda.  The  life  that  the 
majority  of  us  live  in  Britain  has  been  almost  passed  over 
in  the  serious  art  of  our  time.  The  art  galleries  of  London 
do  not  interpret  London.  The  last  thing  we  expect  to  find 
in  any  city  is  the  pictorial  representation  of  its  contem- 
porary life.  The  toilers  of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire,  the 
factory  and  mine  workers,  the  Staffordshire  potters,  the 
metal  workers  of  Birmingham,  the  men  of  the  railways  and 
the  ship-yards,  at  their  work  and  their  play,  and  in  their 
homes,  have  hardly  attracted  attention ;  nor  have  the  modern 
shop,  warehouse,  and  office.     Yet  they  all  afford  the  finest 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  33S 

material  for  art ;  for  it  is  surely  too  late  in  the  day  to  need 
to  say  that  the  artist  can  use  to  artistic  ends  that  which  is 
not  in  itself,  in  its  entirety,  beautiful.  And  beyond  beauty 
there  is  life,  always  significant  for  the  living. 

Glasgow,  indeed,  in  its  municipal  buildings,  has  ventured 
on  the  representation  of  its  great  shipbuilding  industry.  In 
the  London  Royal  Exchange  we  are  taken  into  the  past. 
Manchester,  in  its  Town  Hall,  let  Madox  Brown  bring  its 
history  to  the  time  of  John  Dalton;  and,  hitherto,  has 
stopped  short  there.  G.  F.  Watts,  in  his  huge  picture  of 
the  brewer's  drayman  with  his  horses,  gave  a  pretty  broad 
hint  of  what  art  might  do  in  the  way  of  a  record  of  ordi- 
nary contemporary  life.  In  Worlt — which  is  in  Manchester, 
but  surely  ought  to  have  been  in  London — Madox  Brown 
crowded  into  one  picture  enough  of  town-incident  to  serve 
for  a  dozen.  Frith's  Devhy  Day  and  Railway  Station  might 
have  suggested  to  later  artists  the  treatment  of  similar 
subjects  in  their  own  way.  There  is  inexhaustible  materiaL 
Of  course  it  has  been  used,  but  casually ;  the  work  of  the 
town  has  not  been  as  systematically  dealt  with  as  the  work 
of  the  country  and  the  sea. 

If  it  be  argued  that  the  kind  of  life  most  people  live  to- 
day does  not  provide  good  material  for  art,  it  must  be  said 
in  reply  that  this  is  a  terrible  criticism  of  our  civilisation ; 
and,  indeed,  a  candid  pictorial  statement  as  to  a  large  part 
of  our  life  would  be  its  condemnation.  There  would  be 
some  misgivings  surely,  on  the  private  view  day  at  the 
Royal  Academy,  if  the  pictures  on  the  walls  set  forth  the 
conditions  of  life  of  vast  numbers  of  people  in  this  country. 
As  it  is,  there  is  little  but  elegant  trifling  and  sentiment. 
What  criticisms  of  the  wrongs  and  inequalities  of  life  there 
may  be  too  often  takes  the  form  of  a  sensationalism  that 


336  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

defeats  its  own  ends.  Our  genre  painters  liave  yet  to  see 
life  steadily  and  to  sec  it  whole.  Perhaps  the  people  for 
whom  chiefly  they  have  to  work  do  not  want  them  to  do 
this.     Anyhow,  it  is  not  done. 

In  his  inaugural  lecture  as  Slade  Professor  at  Oxford, 
Kuskin,  when  enumerating  the  directions  of  efibrt  in  which 
he  thought  English  artists  were  liable  to  failure,  and  those 
in  which  he  thought  that  past  experience  had  shown  them 
to  be  sure  of  success,  said :  "  Our  first  great  gift  is  in  the 
portraiture  of  living  people — a  power  already  so  accomplished 
in  both  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  that  nothing  is  left  for 
future  masters  but  to  add  the  calm  of  perfect  workmanship  to 
their  vigour  and  felicity  of  perception."  Whether  or  not 
portrait  painting  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
has  followed  the  course  thus  marked  out  for  it  by  Ruskin,  it 
is  certain  that  both  in  intention  and  accomplishment  our 
portrait  painters,  during  that  time,  have  been  worthy  of  a 
great  tradition.  To  name  only  some  of  the  chief  among 
them — Watts,  Millais,  HoU,  Orchardson,  Herkomer,  Ouless, 
Sir  George  Reid,  and,  among  painters  to  be  mentioned 
in  the  next  chapter,  such  men  as  Whistler,  Sargent, 
La  very,  and  Sir  James  Guthrie,  will  have  left  a  record  of 
many  of  the  most  notable  people  of  their  own  time  that  the 
future  will  value  as  we  value  the  records  of  the  past. 

In  the  same  lecture,  after  claiming  for  us  intense  power  of 
invention  and  expression  in  domestic  di-ama,  Ruskin  went  on 
to  say :  "  In  connection  with  our  simplicity  and  good  humour, 
and  partly  with  that  very  love  of  the  grotesque  which  de- 
bases our  ideal,  we  have  a  sympathy  with  the  lower 
animals  which  is  peculiarly  our  own ;  and  which,  though  it 
has  already  found  some  exquisite  expression  in  the  works  of 
Bewick  and  Landseer,  is  yet  quite  undeveloped."     Redgrave 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  337 

had  already  associated  the  demand  for  pictures  of  horses 
with  the  love  of  hunting  and  racing,  as  a  preliminary  to 
writing  of  such  early  animal  painters  as  Wootton,  Stubbs, 
Sawrey  Gilpin  and  Morland.  He  does  not  forget  Bewick, 
and  also  James  Ward;  and,  coming  to  artists  of  a  later 
period,  he  mentions  Richard  Ansdell  along  with  Landseer. 
Prominent  among  the  animal  painters  of  our  time  are  Mr. 
Briton  Riviere,  J.  T.  Nettleship,  and  J.  ]M.  Swan ;  but  animal 
life  has  been  sympathetically  rendered,  and  none  the  less 
so  because  incidentally,  by  many  of  our  subject  painters. 
Millais'  affection  for  animals  is  evinced  over  and  over  again 
in  his  works.  Even  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  has  given  us  the 
sheep  of  The  Hireling  Shephei'd  and  Strayed  Sheep.  Sidney 
Cooper  has  had  successors  not  a  few  whose  work  at  times 
we  hardly  know  whether  to  describe  as  cattle  and  landscape 
or  landscape  and  cattle. 

Turning  to  the  two  painters  singled  out  above,  we  find 
some  difficulty  in  placing  Mr.  Briton  Riviere.  '  He  is  above 
all  things  an  animal  painter,  but  a  painter  of  animals  in 
association  with  man,  and  in  this  respect  he  has  been  both  an 
historical  and  a  genre  painter.  We  have  historical  painting 
in  his  pictures  of  Daniel  in  the  lions'  den,  of  lions  prowling 
among  the  ruins  of  Persepolis,  of  the  herd  of  swine  running 
down  the  steep  place  into  the  sea,  of  the  Christian  knight 
holding  up  his  cross-hilted  sword  as  he  rides  into  the  forest 
gloom  from  which  horse  and  hounds  shrink  back  in  fear,  of 
the  dog  that,  at  the  cost  of  its  life,  has  sought  to  protect  the 
Royalist  home  against  the  enemy.  We  have  genre  painting 
when  he  shows  us  navvies  playing  with  a  puppy,  a  navvy 
asleep  with  his  dog  beside  him,  the  poacher  and  his  dog, 
the  terrier  sympathising  with  his  little  mistress  in  her  dis- 
grace.    He  takes  us  completely  into  the  animal  world  when 


338  FIFTY  VEAkS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  paints  the  lion  followed  by  a  troop  of  jackals.  Mr. 
Riviere  cannot  be  charged  with  a  fault  that  was  too  often 
evident  in  Landseer's  work  :  he  does  not  endow  his  animals 
with  a  nature  higher  than  their  own;  he  does  not  read 
human  nature  into  them.  Nor  had  Nettleship  and  Swan 
Landseer's  fault;  they  were  the  less  likely  to  make  the 
mistake  because  they  painted  almost  exclusively,  not  the 
animals  that  man  has  tamed  for  use  and  companionship,  but 
the  wild  denizens  of  the  forest. 

The  last  class  of  painters  to  whom  we  have  to  refer,  the 
landscape  painters,  are  perhaps  not  the  least  important; 
certainly  they  are  not  the  least  numerous.  It  is  surely  not 
lack  of  modesty  that  makes  us  think  well  of  our  landscape 
painting.  We  have  seen  that  twice,  in  the  cases  of  Con- 
stable and  the  Barbizon  painters,  and  of  Turner  and  the 
Impressionists,  our  landscape  painters  have  greatly  influenced 
the  art  of  France,  and  through  France  that  of  other 
countries.  Our  painters  have  been  the  pioneers  of  modem 
landscape  art.  We  think  that  the  great  variety  of  scenery 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  our  islands,  and  the  variability 
of  our  climate,  producing  within  short  spaces  of  time  great 
differences  of  effect  in  the  same  scene,  have  had  much  to 
do  with  this.  These  variations  helped  to  quicken  the  sensi- 
bility of  Monet  and  Pissarro  to  atmospheric  effects  when 
they  were  in  this  country  in  1871.  The  air  is  more  visible 
here,  counts  for  more  in  the  general  look  of  things  than  it 
does  in  drier  climates. 

In  writing  of  recent  English  art,  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  says 
little  about  our  landscape  painters,  on  the  ground  that  there 
is  no  longer  an  English  school  of  landscape,  but  only  con- 
temporary landscape  painting !  On  his  own  showing  we 
have  gone  far  to  teach  Europe  the  art,  and  therefore,  he 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  339 

argues,  we  have  no  longer  a  school  of  our  own !  We  might 
almost  imitate  M.  de  la  Sizeranne's  patriotism,  and  claim 
all  contemporary  landscape  painting  as  a  province  of  English 
art.  French  Impressionism  is  perhaps  the  chief  obstacle  to 
our  doing  so ;  and  even  Impressionism  has  been  undergoing 
changes  that  bring  it  nearer  to  our  own  art,  while  not  a  few 
of  our  younger  painters  have  learned  from  the  Impressionists 
without  sacrificing  their  own  individuality.  Our  landscape 
painting  is  rich  enough  to  be  able  to  rely  mainly  on  its  own 
resources,  and  yet  not  to  be  afraid  wisely  to  borrow. 

It  is  not  within  our  scope  to  attempt  a  statement  of  the 
various  sources  of  interest  in  landscape.  Beauty  of  light, 
colour,  tone,  form;  movement  and  life;  appearances  and 
effects  that  awaken  within  us  feelings  sometimes  joyous 
and  sometimes  pensive — such  are,  at  any  rate,  among  the 
chief  of  such  sources,  and  they  are  infinite  in  variety  and 
in  the  ways  in  which  they  combine  with  each  other.  And 
our  landscape  painting  has  been  and  still  is  marked  by  a 
wide  use  of  the  material  that  nature  has  placed  at  the 
disposal  of  art. 

We  have  seen  the  great  importance  that  was  attached  by 
one  side  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  to  presentment 
of  the  detailed  truth  of  nature,  and  that  quite  a  succession 
of  painters  has  subsequently  done  the  same  thing.  Millais, 
as  we  have  seen,  abandoned  this  method,  substitutmg  the 
suggestion  of  detail  for  its  actual  rendering;  and  many  of 
our  later  landscape  painters  have  treated  landscape  in  this 
way ;  but  many  if  not  most  of  the  landscapes  of  the  latter 
half  of  the  century  have  been  more  realistic,  have  made  us 
feel  more  as  if  nature  were  before  us,  than  did  most  of  the 
landscapes,  particularly  the  oil  paintings,  of  the  immediately 
preceding  period.     More  recently,  classical  and  decorative 


340  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

landscape,  neither  of  which  depends  for  its  interest  on 
illusion  of  reality,  have  asserted  themselves  again. 

We  need  not  concern  ourselves  with  the  painters  who 
merely  lasted  on  into  our  period.  One  of  them,  however, 
may  be  mentioned,  as  much  of  his  best  work  was  done  on 
our  side  of  the  half-century.  This  is  John  Linnell,  who 
was  born  in  London  in  1792,  and  lived  to  the  advanced 
age  of  eighty-nine  years.  Though  it  is  by  his  landscapes 
that  he  is  best  known,  he  worked  also  as  a  portrait  painter 
and  engraver,  and  himself  would  speak  of  Biblical  study  as 
the  serious  work  of  his  life,  and  of  landscape  painting  as  a 
recreation.     He  was  the  friend   of  William  Blake,   whose 

In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land, 

shows  him  to  have  seen  his  own  country  as  the  landscape 
painter  sees  it.  Linnell's  pictures  of  English  scenery  are 
strongly  painted,  with  much  truth  of  detail  and  local  colour, 
and  he  was  also  observant  of  effects  of  light.  There  was 
an  epic  feeling  in  his  art ;  he  would  paint  the  blackness  of 
the  coming  storm,  hiding  the  sun  in  the  heavens,  as  if  the 
prophet  Micah's  description  of  one  were  in  his  mind. 
His  work  has  a  more  modern  look  than  that  of  many  of 
his  younger  contemporaries.  His  sons,  J.  T.  and  William 
Linnell,  whose  art  bears  considerable  resemblance  to  his, 
belonging  wholly,  in  their  work,  to  the  latter  half  of  the 
century. 

To  most  people  J.  C.  Hook  is  known  as  having  been  a 
painter  of  the  sea  and  fisher-folk.  Some  may  also  know 
him  to  have  been  in  earlier  days  a  painter  of  pastoral 
subjects.  Going  further  back  again  we  find  him  commenc- 
ing as  a  painter  of  figure-subjects.  He  was  born  in  1819, 
and  his  early  love  for  art  was  encouraged  by  no  less  a  master 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  34T 

than  Constable,  and,  like  so  many  other  English  painters,  he 
carefully  studied  the  Elgin  marbles.  Then  he  became  a 
pupil  in  the  Academy  Schools,  and  it  was  with  a  picture, 
The  Finding  of  the  Body  of  Harold^  that  he  won  the  gold 
medal  of  the  Academy,  and  with  Rizpah  Watching  the  Dead 
Sons  of  Saul  that  he  won  the  travelling  studentship.  He 
went  to  Italy,  and  on  his  return  to  this  country  painted 
Venetian  figure-subjects.  One  of  these,  a  rei)resentation  of 
the  trial  scene  in  "  The  Merchant  of  Venice,"  with  which 
the  writer  has  long  been  familiar,  is,  in  its  colour,  closely 
allied  to  the  work  of  Carpaccio,  the  Italian  master  by  whom 
the  young  English  artist  was  particularly  attracted. 

It  was  love  of  outdoor  life  that  drew  him  away  from  the 
painting  of  figure-subjects,  and  led  him  to  become  a  painter 
first  of  pastoral  subjects,  and  then  of  the  sea.  His  pictures 
of  rural  England,  which  he  began  to  paint  just  about  the 
time  that  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  were  fighting  for 
realism,  were  intimate  enough  to  win  the  enthusiastic  praise 
of  Ruskin,  as  also  were  his  sea-pieces.  The  youth  who 
had  been  encouraged  by  Constable  might  be  cited  as  another 
proof  that  more  than  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brethren  stood  in 
the  way  of  the  fulfilment  of  Constable's  prediction  of  the 
decay  of  English  art.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  the  house 
he  had  built  for  himself  on  Campden  Hill,  and  which  he 
left  to  go  and  live  in  Surrey,  was  afterwards  occupied  by 
Holman  Hunt  and  A.  W.  Hunt.  Something  of  Constable's 
spirit  might  have  entered  into  him,  for  freshness,  the  sense 
of  atmosphere,  sea-breeze  and  salt  spray  is  in  his  work ;  and 
his  colour  is  strong  and  true.  He  was  himself  full  of  vigour, 
could  farm  with  the  farmer,  work  with  the  farm-labourer, 
sail  and  fish  with  the  fisherman ;  he  did  not  merely  see,  but 
lived  and  worked  amongst  the  scenes  and  the  people  that 


342  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  painted,  and  his  interpretation  of  nature  and  life  has  the 
brightness  that  comes  of  health  and  good  spirits. 

Mr.  B.  W.  Leader  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  examples 
of  the  artist  who,  having  made  a  reputation  for  a  particular 
kind  of  work,  finds  himself  able  to  repeat  it  year  after  year, 
even  though  manner  becomes  mannerism,  and  art,  arti- 
ficiality. He  was  born  at  Worcester  in  1831,  and  received 
his  art  teaching  in  the  School  of  Design  there  and  in  the 
Royal  Academy  Schools.  His  pleasantly  composed  and 
agreeably  coloured  landscapes  have  long  made  him  one  of 
the  most  popular  of  our  landscape  painters.  He  is  a  dex- 
terously rapid  worker,  with  an  eye  for  the  picturesque  view. 
There  is  no  sign  in  his  works  of  a  deep  love  of  nature.  He 
records  something  of  her  superficial  beauty,  but  interprets 
little  or  nothing  of  her  innermost  spirit.  His  earlier  work 
was  much  more  subtle  than  his  later  work  has  been,  and  it 
was  stronger  in  colour  and  fuller  in  tone. 

About  eleven  years  the  junior  of  Mr.  Leader  is  Mr.  J.  W. 
North,  whose  landscapes  have  just  the  sympathetic,  intimate 
interpretation  of  the  truth  and  beauty  of  nature  that 
is  lacking  in  those  of  the  older  painter.  He  was  the 
fellow-student  of  Fred  Walker  and  the  friend  of  Richard 
JefFeries.  The  former  owed  not  a  little  to  Mr.  North,  who,  in 
his  intimate  love  of  nature,  comes  close  to  the  latter. 
It  is  not  for  the  painter  to  attempt  to  rival  the  writer  in 
minute  description  of  nature,  though  Mr.  Holman  Hunt, 
and  Millais  in  his  early  time,  may  almost  be  said  to  have 
done  this.  Mr.  North  has  endeavoured  to  suggest  nature's 
infinity  of  detail  without  losing  breadth ;  for,  having  lived 
with  nature,  mere  general  statements  about  her  life  and 
beauty  could  not  content  him.  To  achieve  his  end  he  has 
spent  much  time  on  his  work,  so  that  his  output  has  been 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  343 

comparatively  small  as  to  mere  number  of  pictures.  One 
of  his  works,  with  which  the  writer  happens  to  be  very 
familiar,  bears  the  title  The  Flower  and  the  Leaf^  and  the 
painter's  effort,  and  successful  effort,  has  been  to  portray 
the  effect  of  palpitating,  summer  sunlight  playing  upon  the 
infinite  intricacy  of  detail  in  a  luxuriant  Devonshire  or 
Somersetshire  coomb.  If  he  paints  the  winter  woodland, 
he  will  lovingly  trace  the  slender  gracefulness  of  the  young 
tree-shoots,  the  more  distant  ones  becoming  faint  in  the 
misty  air.  The  freshness  of  spring  and  the  ripeness  of 
autumn — cider  orchards  with  the  grass  beneath  the  trees 
strewn  with  apples — he  has  recorded  also,  for,  like  a  true 
nature  lover,  he  will  miss  nothing  of  the  whole  cycle  of  the 
changing  year.  If  now  and  again  his  colour  be  somewhat" 
crude,  it  is  because  of  his  desire  to  keep  as  far  from  mere 
conventionality  as  possible;  and  time  may  be  trusted  to 
mellow  the  harshness  that  now  and  again,  but  only  now  and 
again,  we  feel.  Many  of  our  landscape  painters  have 
entirely  or  almost  confined  themselves  to  one  locality,  and 
Mr.  North  has  strayed  but  little  from  the  two  counties 
named  above. 

Mr.  Peter  Graham  has  already  been  mentioned  as  a 
fellow-student  of  Pettie  and  Mr.  Orchardson  at  the  Trustees' 
Academy,  Edinburgh,  under  Robert  Scott  Lauder;  but 
whereas  they  began  and  ended  as  painters  of  figure-subjects, 
he  abandoned  that  side  of  art  for  landscape.  His  vigorous, 
realistic  pictures  of  the  moors  and  glens  of  the  Scottish 
Higldands,  and  the  shaggy  cattle  that  inhabit  them,  and 
of  the  haunts  of  the  wild  fowl  on  the  rock-bound  northern 
coasts,  have  become  very  familiar,  even  to  the  man  in  the 
street,  through  the  reproductions  so  often  exhibited  in  the 
print-sellers'  windows.      Grey  misty  skies,  with,  perhaps, 


344  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

fitful  gleams  of  sunlight  breaking  through  the  clouds,  and 
lighting  up  the  otherwise  cold  green  grass,  grey  rock,  or 
grey-green  sea,  have  been  jiainted  by  him  with  minor  varia- 
tions year  after  year  until  we  have  been  ready  to  take  them 
as  looked  at. 

George  Vicat  Cole,  born  at  Portsmouth  in  1833,  might 
almost  be  described,  with  regard  to  his  art,  as  having  one 
foot  on  land  and  one  foot  on  sea.  At  least  he  loved  to 
paint  both  English  pastoral  scenes  and  the  River  Thames, 
from  its  upper  reaches  down  to  where,  as  it  merges  in  the 
sea,  the  great  ships  pass  along  it.  Speaking  of  him  at  the 
Academy  Banquet  after  his  death,  Leighton  said :  "English 
landscape  painting  has  lost  in  Vicat  Cole  one  of  its  most 
honoured  names.  Typically  English  were  the  scenes  on 
which  he  loved  to  dwell — the  coppice,  the  glade,  the  rolling 
pasture  fading  from  green  to  distant  blue,  summer  slumber- 
ing on  brown-tipped  corn.  But  most  of  all  our  English 
Thames  had  won  his  heart  and  occupied  his  hands.  He 
had  followed  its  stream  with  faithful  brush  throughout  its 
length,  from  where  its  first  sweet  gurgle  is  heard  within  the 
grass,  to  where,  far  away,  salt  and  sullied,  it  rocks  on  turbid 
tide  the  carriers  of  the  commerce  of  the  world." 

Vicat  Cole  may  well  lead  up  to  two  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous painters  in  our  time  of  the  sea  and  seafaring  folk, 
the  late  Colin  Hunter  and  Mr.  C.  Napier  Hemy,  who  were 
born  in  the  same  year,  1841.  Both  of  them  Avere  originally 
intended  for  careers  other  than  that  which  they  eventually 
adopted.  Colin  Hunter  was  the  son  of  a  Glasgow  book- 
seller, w^as  for  several  years  a  commercial  clerk,  and  did 
not  take  seriously  to  painting  until  he  was  twenty  years 
of  age.  He  may  be  said  to  have  been  self-taught,  for 
sketching  expeditions  with  an  old  landscape  painter,  and  a 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  345 

few  weeks  in  tlie  studio  of  Bonnat  in  Paris,  were  all  that  he 
received  in  tlie  way  of  regular  teaching.  After  a  few  years 
of  varied  work  he  settled  down  to  sea-painting,  and  his 
fresh  and  vigorous  renderings  of  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Scottish  sea-lochs  and  islands  were  regularly  seen  in  our 
exhibitions  for  many  years,  and  some  of  them  have  found 
places  in  our  public  collections. 

Mr.  Hemy,  who  was  born  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  had 
experience  in  the  Australian  gold-fields,  and  in  helping  to 
work  the  sliip  in  which  he  returned  to  England,  before 
he  became  an  art  student.  After  this  he  had  intervals  of 
travel  and  monastic  life.  The  reading  of  Ruskin's  Modem 
Painters  led  to  his  adoption  for  a  time  of  Pre-Raphaelite 
methods,  and  he  afterwards  studied  figure-painting  at 
Antwerp  under  Baron  Leys.  Like  Hook  and  Colin  Hunter, 
he  only  finally  devoted  himself  to  sea-painting  after  working 
for  a  time  at  other  subjects.  He  has  covered  a  much 
wider  range  of  scene  and  subject  than  Hunter ;  he  has. 
gone  out  upon  the  ocean  as  well  as  the  narrow  seas ;  he 
has  visited  the  ports  of  other  countries  besides  our  own ; 
craft  of  many  kinds,  including  the  modern  man-of-war, 
appear  in  his  pictures,  which  by  no  means  shrink  from  the 
incident  that  ensures  a  certain  popularity. 

Ten  years  later  than  the  two  painters  last-named  comes 
Mr.  W.  L.  Wyllie,  and  he  and  his  brother,  Mr.  C.  W. 
Wyllie,  have  carried  on  the  English  tradition  of  the 
painting  of  sea  and  river-estuary  and  the  shipping  that 
enlivens  them.  To  the  number  of  these  painters,  whose 
work  is  so  proper  to  an  island  country,  may  be  added  Mr. 
W.  H.  Bartlett  and  H.  H.  Maccallum.  Mr.  H.  S.  Tuke, 
whom  we  have  placed  among  the  genre  painters,  might 
almost  as  well  have  been  included  here.     These  and  other 


346  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

paiuters  are  the  successors  of  Turner  and — of  somewhat 
later  time — Clarkson  Stanfield,  and  E.  W.  Cooke. 

Two  Scottish  painters  of  the  same  name,  but  not  of  the 
same  family,  David  Farquharson  and  Joseph  Farquharson, 
should  be  mentioned  here.  The  former  was  born  at  Perth 
in  1843,  and  received  his  education  in  art  in  the  classes 
of  the  Edinburgh  Royal  Institution.  The  latter  was  bom 
in  Edinburgh  in  1846,  and  studied  under  Mr.  Peter  Graham, 
and  also  at  the  Edinburgh  School  of  Art ;  while,  afterwards, 
he  worked  in  the  studio  of  Carolus  Duran  in  Paris.  Both 
of  them  close  observers  of  nature,  and  realists  in  their 
treatment  of  landscape,  there  is  something  more  of  self- 
revelation,  of  the  expression  of  mood  and  feeling,  in  the 
work  of  David  than  in  that  of  Joseph,  who  often  gives  what 
is  little  more  than  a  vivid  transcript  of  nature,  without 
a  clue  as  to  his  own  feeling  about  it,  except  that  he 
has  been  arrested  by  the  scene,  and  thought  it  worth 
recording. 

Few  landscape  painters  are  more  in  evidence  in  our  exhi- 
bition galleries  than  Mr.  David  Murray,  who  was  born  in 
1849,  and  began  life  in  a  Glasgow  business-house.  While 
thus  engaged,  however,  he  found  time  for  the  pursuit  of  art, 
and  eventually  devoted  himself  to  it.  His  work  has  been 
done  chiefly  in  English  pastoral  country,  or  in  the  southern 
Highlands  of  Scotland ;  and  he  has  recorded  the  varying 
beauty,  at  different  seasons  of  the  year,  and  under  many 
conditions  of  light  and  shade,  of  the  lowlands,  with  their 
level  landscape  broken  by  lofty  and  wide-spreading  trees, 
and  of  the  country  where  hill  and  dale  abound. 

Sir  Ernest  A.  Waterlow  is  another  painter  of  our  more 
softly  beautiful  scenery.  He  was  born  in  1850,  and,  after 
studying  at  Carey's  school  and  travelling  in  Germany  and 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  347 

Switzerland,  he  became  a  student  in  the  schools  of  the 
Royal  Academy.  He  is  now  President  of  the  Royal  Society 
of  Painters  in  Water-Colours.  He  chooses  places  picturesque 
in  themselves,  or  made  so  by  some  temporary  condition  of 
liglit,  and  treats  them  in  a  realistic  spirit,  though  with 
much  feeling  for  atmospheric  effect.  Mr.  R.  Thome  Waite 
comes  to  mind  here,  for  he  and  Sir  Ernest  Waterlow  have 
painted  the  same  scenes  together.  Often,  inevitably,  our 
later  painters  remind  us  of  some  of  the  earlier  ones.  With 
many  differences,  of  course,  Mr.  David  Murray  at  times 
makes  us  think  of  Constable;  Sir  Ernest  Waterlow  also 
reminds  us  of  him,  and  of  David  Cox  as  well ;  and  perhaps 
more  than  to  any  other  painter  Mr.  Thorne  Waite  takes 
us  back  to  De  Wint.  Breadth  and  freshness  are  con- 
spicuous qualities  in  his  work. 

Another  realistic  landscape  painter  who  may  be  named 
in  this  company  is  Mr.  Alfred  Parsons,  a  native  of 
Somersetshire,  where  he  was  born  in  1847.  While  occu- 
pied in  the  General  Post  Office,  London,  he  gave  his  even- 
ings to  the  study  of  art,  at  South  Kensington  and  elsewhere. 
In  many  of  his  pictures  he  comes  near  to  the  Pre-Raphael- 
itism  of  Holman  Hunt,  so  close  is  his  observation,  and 
so  careful  his  rendering,  of  nature's  wealth  of  intricate 
detail. 

To  this  generation,  and,  generally,  to  this  type  of  land- 
scape painters,  belong  two  Scottish  artists,  Mr.  Leslie 
Thomson,  born  in  Aberdeen  in  1881,  and  Mr.  Robert 
W.  Allan,  born  in  Glasgow  in  1852.  Mr.  Thomson  has  an 
especial  affection  for  luminous  skies  over  wide-spreading 
landscapes;  while  prior  to,  and  ever  since,  recent  travels 
in  foreign  lands,  both  near  and  far,  we  have  chiefly  asso- 
ciated Mr.  Allan  with  the  rock-bound  Scottish  coasts,  and 


348  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  harbours  of  their  fishing  villages,  which  he  lias  painted 
with  vigour  and  broad  truthfulness. 

The  landscape  painters  mentioned  hitherto  may  be  classed 
together  as  realists.  What  strikes  us  first — and  often  last 
— in  their  work,  is  resemblance  to  the  fact  as  we  have  seen 
it.  There  is  never,  of  course,  mere  transcript  without 
selection  and  composition ;  the  artist  is  always  more  or  less 
in  evidence ;  but  the  external  fact  is  more  in  evidence.  We 
may  put  it  that  the  artist  says  to  us,  "  This  is  what  I  have 
seen ;  how  does  it  appeal  to  you  ? "  rather  than,  "  This  is  how 
I  myself  have  felt."  Yet  many  of  the  pictures  do  also  say 
this  to  us,  especially  in  the  case  of  some  of  the  painters, 
and  that  they  have  all  been  grouped  together  by  no  means 
implies  that  they  do  not  differ  considerably  in  this  respect. 

The  list  might,  of  course,  be  extended.  Mr.  Arnesby 
Brown,  for  example,  would  bring  us  nearly  a  generation 
later  than  the  youngest  of  the  painters  already  considered. 
One  more  name  must  be  mentioned,  that  of  Mr.  Alfred 
East.  Born  at  Kettering  in  1849,  he  studied  at  the  Glasgow 
School  of  Art,  and  in  Paris  under  Bouguereau  and  Tony 
Fleury.  Afterwards  he  painted  at  Barbizon,  and  enlarged 
his  experience  subsequently  by  visiting  Japan.  He  was 
one  of  the  first  members  of  the  New  English  Art  Club,  but 
retired  from  it  within  two  or  three  years.  Though  there 
has  always  been  a  strong  element  of  realism  in  his  work, 
yet  picture-making,  in  the  sense  of  formal  composition  and 
design,  has  also  always  been  present;  and,  under  Japanese 
influence,  there  has  been  a  marked  decorative  element  as 
well.  His  work,  indeed,  has  oft,en  seemed  to  halt  between 
various  opinions.  We  have  not  known  quite  what  chiefly 
we  were  intended  to  enjoy.  Latterly,  however,  he  has 
declared  himself  more   plainly.     He    has    elected    to   put 


LAKE   I50URGET   FROM    MONT   RKVARD 


AI.FRKD   EAST 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  349 

design,  formal  design,  upon  the  plane  of  the  canvas,  in  the 
forefront  of  his  art,  so  that,  in  principle,  his  work  now 
approximates  closely  to  the  point  of  view  of  Claude.  He 
has  become  a  classicist,  and  his  erstwhile  membership  of 
the  Kew  English  Art  Club  must  seem  to  him  now  one  of 
the  strange  things  that  happen  in  the  whirligig  of  time. 
But  both  he  and  the  club  have  changed.  In  his  case  the 
change  is  interesting  as  illustrating  what  has  already  been 
said,  namely,  that  because  much  has  been  added  in  recent 
years  to  the  resources  of  art,  and  new  pleasures  have  been 
provided  for  us,  it  is  not  necessary  to  renounce  the  older 
pleasures  because  they  are  not  new. 

We  turn  now  to  a  number  of  landscape  painters  in  whose 
work  there  is  more  self-revelation  than  in  that  of  the 
painters  already  considered. 

In  this  connexion  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  slight  has 
been  the  following  of  Turner  in  his  own  country.  He  did 
more  than  merely  modify  the  natural  world  in  his  art; 
he  transformed  it  into  a  world  of  his  own  imagining.  Re- 
semblance to  the  fact  is  not  what  strikes  us  first  in  his 
pictures,  but  rather  the  subtle  departures  from  resemblance 
that  convert  the  whole  into  something  new  and  strange. 
Nature  is  the  starting-point,  not  the  goal  of  his  art.  Among 
English  landscape  painters  one  only  thinks  of  such  men  as  Mr. 
Clarence  Whaite,  the  veteran  painter  of  the  "Welsh  moun- 
tains, Mr.  Albert  Goodwin,  and,  in  a  measure,  Mr.  A.  W. 
Hunt,  as  having  thus  subordinated  nature  to  the  ends  of 
art.  There  is  no  question  here,  of  course,  of  comparison  in 
detail,  but  only  as  to  general  principle.  Some  of  the  Scot- 
tisli  painters,  to  be  mentioned  in  the  next  chapter,  have 
also  ventured  to  create  a  world  of  their  own.  Turner's  in- 
fluence on  the  French  Impressionists  also  was  only  in  one 


350  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

particular;  they  were  impressed  by  his  successful  quest  of 
light.  The  creative  element  in  his  art  did  not  appeal  to 
them. 

First  among  the  painters  who,  more  than  the  majority, 
reveal  their  own  temperament  and  moods  to  us,  we  may  take 
Cecil  Lawson,  the  story  of  whose  life  is  that  of  a  career  of 
great  promise  all  too  early  closed.  He  was  bom  in  1851 
and  died  in  1882,  at  the  age  of  thirty-one.  He  received  his 
training  in  art  from  his  father,  William  Lawson,  an 
Edinburgh  portrait  painter.  He  drew  in  black  and  white 
for  magazine  illustrations  before  devoting  himself  to  land- 
scape painting.  His  best  knoAvn  works  are  The  August 
Moon^  in  the  Tate  Gallery,  and  The  Minister's  Garden, 
in  the  Manchester  City  Art  Gallery,  which  also  possesses  a 
smaller  landscape  'Twixt  Sun  and  Moon^  a  subtle  rendering 
of  the  time  that  is  neither  night  nor  day,  when  the  waning 
light  of  the  sun  and  the  growing  light  of  the  moon  are  con- 
tending for  mastery,  and,  as  the  cattle  go  homewards  across 
the  water-meadows,  a  thin  veil  of  mist  begins  to  obscure  the 
distance. 

The  August  Moon  shows  the  ruler  of  the  night  at  full 
strength,  and  yet  but  partially  defeating  the  darkness  which 
lurks  like  an  ambushed  foe  behind  each  and  every  hiding- 
place.  The  painter  told  a  friend  that  he  should  try  in  this 
picture  to  do  what  had  not  yet  been  done :  to  show  how 
much  colour  there  was  in  a  moonlighted  landscape.  In  both 
this  picture  and  The  Minister''s  Garden  there  is  something 
of  the  abundantly  satisfying  strength  of  Rubens.  The 
latter  picture  is  simply  the  vista,  from  a  little  garden  on  a 
low  hillside,  over  a  wide  stretch  of  fertile  country.  The 
title  lends  a  touch  of  poetry  to  a  scene  already  poetic.  It 
was  suggested  by  Goldsmith's  "  Deserted  Village,"  and  it  is 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  3SI 

pleasant  to  think  of  a  good-hearted,  earnest  man  as  being  the 
gardener  here,  and,  as  he  gardens,  pondering  over  the  needs 
of  the  parishioners,  some  of  whom  we  can  see  in  the  little 
valley  below.  But  the  thought  is  not  necessary  to  the 
enjoyment  of  the  picture,  and  could  easily  be  banished  by 
any  one  who  would  prefer  to  be  without  it.  To  the  left  of 
the  picture  are  the  stem  and  the  lower  branches  of  a  Scots 
pine,  under  which  are  the  beehives,  with  trailing  nastur- 
tiums on  the  ground  before  them,  and  a  fine  group  of  holly- 
hocks on  the  farther  side  of  them.  To  the  right  are  roses, 
growing  over  a  low  fence ;  and  the  kitchen-garden  is  beyond 
again  on  the  slope  of  the  hill.  There  is  no  lack  of  detail, 
but  it  is  subordinated  to  the  general  impression,  and  the 
foreground,  the  wide-reaching  distance,  and  the  narrow 
space  of  sky  seen  above  it,  are  combined  into  singular  rich- 
ness of  colour  and  depth  of  tone. 

"VVe  may  perhaps  also  bring  Mr.  James  Aumonier  among 
the  more  imaginative  painters,  for  although  there  is  a  strong 
element  of  realism  in  his  art,  the  fact  is  largely  impreg- 
nated with  feeling.  Indeed,  the  objects  in  the  picture  seem 
often  the  mere  occasion  for  tones  of  light  and  colour  that 
appeal  to  our  emotions.  He  is  a  native  of  London,  was 
self-taught  in  art,  which,  in  his  youth,  he  pursued  in  the 
leisure  he  could  obtain  from  the  work  of  designing  for 
printed  calicoes. 

Thomas  Hope  McLachlan,  bom  at  Darlington  in  1845,  is 
a  painter  who  deserves  to  be  mentioned  here,  though  he  did 
but  little  work,  and  his  reputation  is  chiefly  among  his 
fellow-artists.  He  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  and  became, 
and  practised  as,  a  barrister,  but  eventually  devoted  himself 
entirely  to  painting.  He  died  suddenly  in  1897.  His 
landscapes  are  full  of  tender,  mysterious  charm.     A  shep- 


352  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

herdess,  silhouetted  against  the  evening  sky,  -while  the  sheep 
fed  about  her,  would  be  sufficient  subject  for  him.  He 
stayed  his  hand  when  he  had  expressed  the  feeling  nature 
had  awakened  in  him,  so  that  all  his  pictures  have  a  per- 
sonal note.  They  communicate  what  he  had  felt  \  they  are 
very  far  from  recording  everything  that  he  might  have  seen 
had  he  examined  the  landscape  carefully  bit  by  bit.  To  say 
that  his  work  recalls  that  of  Millet,  and,  in  a  measure,  that 
of  George  Mason  and  Fred  "Walker,  is  not  to  accuse  him  of 
lack  of  originality,  for  his  expression  is  unmistakably  his 
own,  but  is  to  affirm  the  true  poetic  quality  of  his  work. 

M.  Ridley  Corbet,  a  pupil  of  Signor  Costa,  was  a  true 
poet-painter,  sensitive  to  subtle  qualities  of  light  and  colour ; 
and  his  landscapes  make  that  appeal  to  the  emotions  which 
seems  to  come  to  us  mysteriously  from  the  painter  himself. 
We  are  brought  into  touch  with  a  human  personality.  As 
his  two  pictures  in  the  Tate  Gallery  show,  nature  anywhere 
could  arouse  his  feeling.  The  Severn  Valley  would  suffice 
as  well  as  Yal  d'Arno.  The  poetic  landscapes  of  George 
Mason — he  and  Fred  Walker  should  both  be  remembered 
here — were  painted,  as  we  saw,  in  Stafifordshire.  The  sun, 
the  moon,  and  the  stars,  and  the  earth  they  lighten,  brightly 
or  dimly  or  leave  dark,  under  and  upon  which  the  countless 
generations  of  men  have  lived,  are  anywhere  commonplace 
only  to  those  who  are  devoid  of  feeling. 

Edward  Stott  is  the  poet-painter  of  the  twilight.  To  say 
this  is  to  state  a  limitation.  One  would  be  glad  if,  now  and 
again,  Mr.  Stott  showed  that  he  could  feel  and  express  the 
poetry  of  other  times  of  day.  But  his  one  main  theme  has 
many  variations,  and  these  he  has  rendered  with  rare 
subtlety.  William  Stott,  who  called  himself  '  of  Oldham,' 
to  distinguish  himself  from  his  namesake  who  is  of  Koch- 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  353 

dale,  was,  to  the  present  writer  at  least,  above  all  else  the 
poet-painter  of  the  Alps,  whose  vast  massiveness,  appalling 
precipices,  high-towering  pinnacles  and  wide  fields  of  snow 
he  transformed  into  visions  of  majesty,  splendour,  and 
solemnity.  There  is  in  many  of  his  paintings,  even  in  his 
pastel  studies,  a  wonderful  sense  of  the  vast  solitudes  upon 
which  man  enters  at  his  peril.  We  seem  to  be  where  first 
the  gods  might  step  when  they  come  to  visit  the  earth. 
Stott  was  a  master  of  subtle  tones,  which  gave  fine  quality 
to  all  his  landscapes.  As  a  figure  painter,  with  myths  and 
idylls  for  subjects,  he  did  not  reach  the  same  distinction. 

Mr.  Adrian  Stokes  and  Mr.  Moffat  Lindner,  both  of 
whom  have  been  members  of  the  New  English  Art  Club,  as 
well  as  of  the  Newlyn  group  of  painters,  should  also  be 
mentioned  here,  together  with  Mr.  Julius  Olsson.  Mr. 
Adrian  Stokes  has  found  true  lyric  poetry  in  bright  light 
and  colour ;  nature  is  glad  and  gay  in  his  pictures.  Mr. 
Moffat  Lindner  is  moved  by  the  intense  colour  that  often 
invests  great  spaces  of  water  beneath  the  infinite  vastness  of 
the  sky.  Mr.  Olsson  loves  the  delicate  harmonies  played  by 
the  moonlight  air. 

Other  landscape  painters  will  be  mentioned  in  the  next 
chapter,  in  which  we  shall  discuss  the  art  of  Whistler  and 
certain  Scottish  painters,  and  of  Sargent  and  the  painters 
who  perhaps  best  represent  the  chief  aims  of  the  New 
English  Art  Club.  The  landscape  painters  already  men- 
tioned have,  for  the  most  part,  either  always  belonged  to,  or 
found  their  way  into,  the  orthodox  ranks.  They  have  been 
welcome  at  the  Royal  Academy.  We  must  not  forget  that 
many  painters  who  have  been  included  in  other  categories 
have  also  made  important  contributions  to  landscape  paint- 
ing. Mr.  Clausen  and  Mr.  La  Thangue  may  be  instanced. 
2  a 


354  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

George  Mason  and  Fred  Walker  have  already  been  men- 
tioned in  the  same  sense. 

In  this  chapter  the  endeavour  has  been  made  to  give  the 
main  features  of  painting  in  Great  Britain  during  the  last 
half-century,  apart  from  the  work  of  a  number  of  painters 
reserved  for  separate  discussion.  When  this  also  has  been 
done,  our  task  will  be  completed. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PAINTING  IN   GREAT   BRITAIN 

{Continued) 

IN  this  chapter  we  have  to  consider  the  work  of  two 
American  artists  who  have  become  EngHsh  artists  by 
adoption — Whistler  and  Sargent;  of  a  number  of  Scottish 
artists,  who  are  often  and  appropriately  linked  \vith 
Whistler ;  of  certain  members,  past  and  present,  of  the  New 
English  Art  Club,  of  which  Mr.  Sargent  has  been  a  member 
since  its  foundation ;  and  then  to  say  what  seems  desirable  in 
the  way  of  summary  and  conclusion. 

It  was  a  saying  of  AVhistler's,  already  quoted,  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  nationality  in  art.  The  truth  in  the 
saying  is  that  art  is  ever  transcending  the  limits  of  nation- 
ality. No  nation  lives  unto  itself.  Yet  there  remain 
national  differences.  Even  in  these  dull  days,  when  local 
differences  in  dress  are  dying  out,  when  Paris  fashions  are 
discussed  in  the  newspapers  of  remote  towns  in  the  Canadian 
Far  West,  and  when  Paris  is  only  a  seven  hours'  journey 
from  London,  there  are  marked  differences  in  the  dress 
of  both  sexes,  and  of  all  sections  of  the  community,  in  these 
two  cities.     And  dress  is  a  form  of  art. 

Whistler,  as  Mr.  George  Moore  points  out,  needed  the 
saying  to  account  for  himself.  He  was  an  American  by 
l)irth.    To  go  back  further  still,  he  was  Irish  by  ancestry  no 

355 


356  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

more  remote,  indeed,  than  his  grandparents.  He  himself 
was  born  at  Lowell,  in  Massachusetts,  in  1834,  and  was 
educated  at  the  United  States  Military  School  at  West  Point. 
He  was  there  for  three  years,  during  which  period  he  ac- 
quired so  little  knowledge  of  chemistry  as  to  call  silica 
an  elastic  gas  or  a  "  saponifiable  fat ! "  Thereupon  West 
Point  decided  that  it  had  no  further  need  of  him.  He  then 
obtained  employment  in  the  United  States  Coast  Survey, 
but  soon  found  the  necessary  topographical  work  so  irksome 
that  he  frequently  absented  himself  without  leave,  and  again 
he  received  his  dismissal.  He  then  went  to  London,  and 
shortly  afterwards  to  Paris,  where  he  became  a  pupil  of 
Gleyre.  He  had  always  shown  skill  in  drawing,  and  now, 
at  last,  he  had  found  his  vocation.  Among  his  fellow- 
students  were  Degas,  Fantin-Latour,  and  Legros.  As  we 
have  already  seen,  he  is  one  of  those  who,  in  Fantin-Latour's 
Hommage  a  Delacroix,  are  grouped  before  the  portrait  of 
the  apostle  of  Romanticism.  Delacroix  died  in  1863 ;  the 
picture  is  dated  1864. 

The  portrait  of  Whistler  in  this  picture  is  thoroughly 
characteristic.  He  stands,  leaning  on  his  cane,  and  half 
turns  his  head  to  look  at  the  spectator  out  of  the  corner  of 
his  eye,  with  an  expression  that  may  be  described  as  a 
quizzical  note  of  interrogation.  It  was  thus  that  he  used 
to  watch  fresh  visitors  to  his  studio,  keen  to  discover  if 
they  knew  anything  about  art  as  he  understood  it,  and 
whether  or  not,  according  to  the  result  of  the  scrutiny,  they 
were  worth  consideration. 

From  1874  he  made  London  his  head-quarters,  but  he 
flitted  about  between  London,  Paris,  Venice,  and  his  native 
country.  It  cannot  be  said  that,  even  yet,  his  art  has  found 
general    acceptance   in    this   country,   though    one   of    his 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  357 

nocturnes  is  now  to  be  seen  in  the  National  Gallery  of 
British  Art.  A  Pre-Raphaelite  leader  recently  would  not 
80  much  as  look  at  a  fine  example  of  Whistler's  art  when  it 
was  pointed  out  to  him.  Whistler  had  only  been  in  London 
about  three  years  when  Ruskin  wrote,  in  Fors  Clavigera^ 
aproj^os  of  an  exhibition  at  the  Grosvenor  Gallery:  "For 
Mr.  Whistler's  own  sake,  no  less  than  for  the  protection  of 
the  purchaser,  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay  ought  not  to  have 
admitted  works  into  the  gallery  in  which  the  ill- educated 
conceit  of  the  artist  so  nearly  approached  the  aspect  of 
wilful  imposture.  I  have  seen,  and  heard,  much  of  Cockney 
impudence  before  now,  but  never  expected  to  hear  a  cox- 
comb ask  two  hundred  guineas  for  flinging  a  pot  of  paint  in 
the  public's  face."  It  was  Ruskin,  however,  that  was  the 
Cockney,  as  elsewhere  he  has  self-critically  remarked,  say- 
ing of  himself  as  a  boy:  "I  began  to  lead  a  very  small, 
perky,  contented,  conceited,  Cock-Robinson-Crusoe  sort  of 
life,  in  the  central  point  which  it  appeared  to  me  (as  it 
must  naturally  appear  to  geometrical  animals)  that  I  occu- 
pied in  the  universe." 

As  is  well  known.  Whistler  brought  a  libel  action  against 
Ruskin  on  account  of  the  Fors  Clavigefi'a  criticism,  and 
obtained  a  farthing  damages.  He  insisted  on  having  the 
farthing,  and  wore  it  as  a  pendant  to  his  watch-chain. 

The  adverse  criticism  of  Whistler  in  Fors  followed  a 
eulogy  of  Burne-Jones;  and,  to  the  regret  of  the  latter, 
Ruskin  asked  him  to  give  evidence  at  the  trial — a  request 
that  friendship  made  it  impossible  to  refuse.  His  evidence 
was  no  help  to  Ruskin's  case.  It  did  nothing  to  justify 
such  a  savage  attack,  though  it  would  have  justified,  at 
any  rate  as  not  being  libellous,  more  measured  adverse 
criticism.     "I  think,"  he  said,  "that  nothing  but  perfect 


[ 


358  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

finish  ought  to  be  allowed  by  artists ;  that  they  should  not 
be  content  with  anything  that  falls  short  of  what  the  age 
acknowledges  as  essential  to  perfect  work.  I  have  seen  the 
pictures  by  Mr.  Whistler  which  were  produced  yesterday  in 
this  court,  and  I  think  the  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver  is  a 
work  of  art,  but  a  very  incomplete  one ;  an  admirable 
beginning,  but  that  it  in  no  sense  whatever  shows  the  finish 
of  a  complete  work  of  art.  I  am  led  to  the  conclusion 
because  v/hile  I  think  the  picture  has  many  good  qualities — 
in  colour,  for  instance,  it  is  beautiful — it  is  deficient  in 
form,  and  form  is  as  essential  as  colour."  This  is  but  faint 
damnation.  It  is  really  praise,  almost  remarkable  as  coming 
from  such  a  man  at  such  a  time.  How  uncertain  was  the 
ground  of  what  was  adverse  in  his  statement  will  be  seen 
from  a  mere  quotation  of  the  phrase,  *'  what  the  age 
acknowledges  as  essential  to  perfect  work."  He  said  him- 
self that  he  wished  "Whistler  knew  that  the  trial  made  him 
sorry.  Lady  Burne-Jones  says,  in  her  biograpliy  of  her 
husband :  "  Whistler,  who  was  quoted  to  him  sometimes,  he 
placed  far  above  any  of  his  followers;  his  technique  he 
called  perfect,  and  his  colour  always  good." 

The  Ruskin- Whistler  incident  is  not  a  pleasant  one  to 
think  about,  especially  for  those  who  hold  Ruskin  in  high 
esteem  on  many  grounds.  But  it  is  too  instructive  for  us  to 
pass  it  over  here ;  and  the  part  played  in  it  by  Burne-Jones, 
and  his  estimate  of  AYhistler's  art,  are  of  great  interest  as 
showing  that  a  rapprochement  was  not  impossible  between 
the  second  generation  of  the  romantic  side  of  Pre-Raphaelit- 
ism  and  this  so  different  art,  so  differently  derived.  Whistler, 
indeed,  has  been  said  to  have  come  under  the  influence  of 
Rossetti,  by  whom  Burne-Jones  was  inspired;  there  were 
resemblances  as  well  as  differences  between  the  two  schools. 


PORTRAIT  OF  THE  ARTIST   IN   HIS  STUDIO        I.   McNEti.L  whisti.er 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  359 

Neither  of  them  was  realistic ;  both  sought  beauty.  Only- 
Whistler  was  content  witli  beauty  alone,  desiring  not  at  all 
that,  as  in  Rossetti  and  Bume-Jones's  work,  there  should  be 
a  "literary"  element  as  well.  Also,  he  entirely  subordinated 
form  to  colour,  regarding  the  latter  as  the  main  objective  of 
painting;  though  his  paintings  show  the  beauty  of  line 
which  he  pursued  in  another  art,  that  of  etching,  from 
which,  in  his  work,  colour  is  excluded. 

Though  Whistler  was  the  pupil  of  Gleyre,  he  was  not  to 
become  a  classical  painter.  Probably  he  would  not  in  any 
event  have  done  so;  but  he  met  Courbet  in  the  studio  of 
Fantin-Latour,  saw  much  of  him  subsequently,  and  any 
slight  chance  that  he  could  become  a  Classicist  was  thereby 
doubtless  swept  away.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  as  little 
likely  to  become  a  follower  of  Courbet.  There  was  too 
great  a  difference  in  the  physique  and  temperament  of  the 
two  men.  Courbet  was  strength  itself ;  Whistler  was  frail 
and  nervous.  But  he  would  at  least  be  prevented  by  Courbet 
from  going  to  history  and  to  myth  for  his  subjects ;  he  was 
bound,  if  he  came  under  the  influence  of  the  champion  of 
Realism,  to  concern  himself  with  what  he  could  see  round 
about  him.  But  Fantin-Latour,  the  student  of  tone  and 
atmosphere,  was  his  fellow-pupil;  and  he  also  became  ac- 
quainted with  Manet,  who  was  feeling  his  way  in  the  same 
direction;  and  the  work  of  these  young  painters  would,  if 
nothing  else  would,  reveal  to  him  where  his  own  strength 
lay.  He  was  sensitive  and  impressionable;  hence  he  be- 
came, in  a  broad  sense,  an  Impressionist.  He  was  not 
destined  to  give  clear  accounts  of  external  facts,  after  the 
manner  of  Courbet,  but  to  record  only  the  impressions  that  the 
facts  made  upon  him,  impressions  of  colour,  tone,  and  light. 
The  substantial  external  fact  was  not  entirely  suppressed,  but 


36o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

it  was  entirely  subordinated  to  the  sensuous  emotion  it 
aroused  in  him.  Any  tiling  that  produced  visible  harmony 
was  sufficient  for  his  purpose,  and  to  obtain  such  harmony 
he  was  willing  to  sacrifice  much  else — even  to  sacrifice  truth. 
For  example,  he  painted  a  full-length  portrait  of  M.  Duret, 
and  in  order  to  get  over  the  stiffness  of  legs  cased  in  modem 
trousers,  he  threw  a  lady's  domino  over  the  arm  of  his 
subject,  so  that  it  hung  down  and  partly  hid  the  legs,  in 
addition  to  providing  material  for  a  colour-scheme.  When 
M.  Buret's  friends  saw  the  portrait  they  exclaimed  that  they 
did  not  know  he  was  such  a  lady's  man !  Nor  was  he.  The 
domino  was  not  specially  appropriate  to  the  man  himself ;  it 
was  useful  pictorially,  which  was  enough  for  Whistler,  and 
also  for  M.  Duret.  A  portrait  painter  who  once  remarked 
to  the  present  writer  that  the  practice  of  his  art  was  not  an 
agreeable  thing  in  a  certain  provincial  city,  because  the 
people  there  expected  portraits  to  be  good  likenesses,  was 
surely,  in  this  at  least,  a  good  Whistlerian!  Yet  there 
was  no  essential  untruth  in  the  domino.  It  is  surely  quite 
characteristic  of  a  Parisian  gentleman  that  he  should  have 
the  courtesy  to  relieve  a  lady  of  the  weight  of  a  garment 
she  is  not  wearing. 

It  was  to  emphasise  his  point  of  view  that  Whistler 
called  his  pictures  Harmonies,  Symphonies,  Arrangements, 
and  Nocturnes.  The  portraits  of  his  mother  and  Thomas 
Carlyle  received  the  sub-title  Arrangement  in  Black  and 
Grey.  Symphony  in  White^  Number  I :  The  White  Girl,  is 
the  title  of  one  of  his  earliest  exhibited  pictures.  Yet 
although  it  might  seem  as  if  Whistler  regretted  having  to 
mingle  any  record  of  fact  with  colour-music,  subtle  interpre- 
tation of  facts  is  obvious  in  his  pictures.  Those  who  care 
little  for  tone  and  colour  may  feel  the  pathos  of  the  two 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  361 

portraits  just  mentioned.  They  are  deeply  sympathetic 
records  of  old  age,  of  the  time  when  the  fire  of  life  is  burn- 
ing low.  They  are  not  only  sympathetic,  they  are  reverent. 
In  all  his  portraits,  far  removed  though  they  be  from  illu- 
sion of  corporeity,  there  are  character  and  expression,  in 
gesture  and  attitude  as  well  as  in  the  face.  Whether  there 
be  detailed  likeness  or  not  we  may  not  know ;  but  the 
artist  referred  to  in  the  preceding  paragraph  as  contemptuous 
of  mere  likeness  is  not  a  true  Whistlerian  if  he  be  not 
solicitous  of  interpreting  the  mental  and  emotional  nature  of 
his  subjects.  The  spirit  of  Whistler's  men,  women,  and 
children  seems  to  have  been  exhaled  on  the  canvas  and  to 
have  become  visible  there.  Was  the  etcher  with  marvellous 
sense  of  line,  the  painter  who  put  foremost  subtlety  of  tone 
and  colour,  so  sensitive  also  to  the  outward  visible  signs  of 
the  spirit  within  that  he  instinctively  selected  and  recorded 
themi 

In  his  landscapes  also  Whistler  may  be  said  to  have  dis- 
tilled the  essence  of  the  scene  he  painted,  or  at  least  to 
have  distilled  one  essence  from  the  scene.  No  one  painter, 
no  single  method  of  art,  can  achieve  everything.  Whistler 
could  not  give  what  others  had  to  give,  but  what  he  did  give 
was  valuable.  lie  separated  from  what  else  in  nature  was 
beautiful  or  significant,  that  to  which  he  was  most  sensitive, 
tone,  delicate  gradations  of  colour,  and  significant  and 
beautiful  line.  A  strong  adherent  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites 
recently  sought  to  belittle  Whistler's  pictures  of  the  night- 
time by  saying  that  he  himself  had  appreciated  the  beauty 
of  lights  shining  out  against  the  blue  blackness  of  the  night 
long  before  Whistler  sought  to  fix  it  upon  the  canvas. 
Doubtless  many  a  beautiful  thing  has  been  recognised  as 
beautiful   before  it  has  been  set  down  by  the  artist.     Its 


362  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

beauty,  indeed,  must  be  seen  before  it  can  be  recognised  as 
a  fit  subject  for  art.  Whistler,  however,  was  not  the  first 
who  sought  to  render  in  art  the  beauty  of  the  night-time. 
He  might,  indeed,  have  been  led  to  do  so  by  the  example  of 
Holman  Hunt,  who  in  the  Holy  Land  had  done  this  before 
Whistler  had  completed  his  studentship  in  Paris,  and  not  as 
part  of  a  subject-picture,  but  with  the  beauty  of  the  night 
and  the  lights  shining  out  in  it,  for  the  subject  of  the 
picture.  His  painting  The  Ship,  in  which  the  steamer's 
lights,  the  red  glow  from  the  funnel,  and  the  moon  and  stars 
in  the  blue-black  sky,  are  the  pictorial  subject,  was  painted 
in  1875,  two  years  before  Whistler  exhibited  the  Nocturne 
that  roused  Ruskin's  ire.  But  in  these  studies  of  Holman 
Hunt's  there  was  still  much  form  and  even  incident. 
Whistler  eliminated  everything,  as  nearly  as  might  be,  but 
the  tone  and  colour  and  light. 

Time  has  its  revenges.  The  painter  who  made  sport  for 
lawyers  and  public,  and  whom  artists  were  called  upon  to 
declare  hardly  to  be  an  artist,  is  now  acclaimed  as  one  of  the 
foremost  artists  of  his  time. 

He  was  not  an  Impressionist  in  the  same  sense  as  Monet 
and  Pissarro.  He  did  not  use  their  methods,  for  he  did  not 
seek  their  ends.  He  Avas  allied  rather  to  Manet  in  his 
earlier  style,  to  Degas  and  to  Fantin-Latour.  It  must  not 
be  overlooked  also,  that  for  much  of  the  charm  and  decora- 
tive quality  of  his  art  he  was,  as  were  his  fellow-artists  in 
Paris,  indebted  to  the  Japanese. 

There  is  good  reason  for  associating  Whistler  with  the 
Scottish  painters  who  have  become  known  as  the  Glasgow 
school.  Pictures  by  him  would  look  more  at  home  in  an 
exhibition  of  their  works  than  in  any  otlier  British  exhibi- 
tion.    In  fact,  almost  anywhere  else,  they  would  be  out  of 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  363 

place.  And  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  these  painters  have 
been  influenced  by  Whistler  and  by  other  painters,  such  as 
Millet,  Corot,  Manet,  and  Israels  and  his  fellow-painters  in 
Holland,  in  whose  work,  tone,  and  hannonious  if  subdued 
colour  are  conspicuous  features.  No  pictures — by  British 
painters — are  so  easy  to  hang  as  those  of  the  Glasgow 
school.  They  do  not  cry  out  upon  the  walls.  Never  does 
the  sky  in  one  of  their  pictures  look  from  a  short  distance 
like  a  space  to  let.  Natural  fact  is  never  allowed  to  over- 
ride the  claims  of  art.  In  this  they  are  akin  to  Whistler 
and,  as  suggested  in  the  last  chapter,  to  Turner.  Herr 
Muther's  criticism  of  the  school  is  interesting.  "The  art 
of  the  Continent,''  he  says,  "  is  deeper  and  more  serious, 
and  the  union  between  temperament  and  nature  to  be  found 
in  it  is  more  spiritual.  With  its  decorative  palette  pictures 
this  Scotch  art  approaches  the  border  where  painting  ends 
and  the  Persian  carpet  begins.  For  all  that,  it  has  had  a 
quickening  influence  upon  the  art  of  the  Continent.  After 
an  epoch  of  *  bright-painting,'  it  taught  the  painter  to  feel 
once  more  the  witchery  of  mood  with  its  full  and  sonorous 
harmonies  of  colour." 

The  subordination  of  the  pictorial  to  the  decorative 
motive  is  nowhere  more  evident  than  in  the  work  of  Mr. 
E.  A.  Hornel.  Some  years  ago,  in  the  course  of  a  dis- 
cussion in  the  Liverpool  City  Council  as  to  whether  a 
picture  by  Mr.  Hornel  should  be  purchased  for  the  Walker 
Art  Gallery,  one  of  the  aldermen  said :  "  The  only  motive 
of  Mr.  Hornel's  picture  is  a  mode  of  art,  or  rather  artifice, 
in  introducing  a  number  of  colours  with  the  idea  of  making 
them  harmonise;  and  this  could  be  done,  and  had  been 
done,  by  means  of  the  palette-knife."  Mr.  George  Moore 
says  that  he  has  not  the  least  idea  what  this  means.    Surely 


364  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

it  means  exactly  what  Herr  Muther  says  about  the  Glasgow 
school.  Mr.  Hornel's  pictures  have  until  quite  recently 
looked  more  fitted  for  panel  decorations  than  for  enclosing 
in  frames.  They  have  been  above  everything  decorative. 
Recently  they  have  become  more  pictorial  while  not  ceasing 
to  be  decorative ;  and  Liverpool  has  purchased  one  of  them. 
Had  the  alderman  whom  Mr.  George  Moore  failed  to  under- 
stand some  right  upon  his  side  %  At  least  his  point  was  an 
arguable  one. 

!Many  of  these  Scottish  painters  have  been  members  of 
the  Kew  English  Art  Club.  Not  a  few  of  them  were 
among  its  first  members.  For  the  most  part  they  have  left 
it.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  reason  of  this  segrega- 
tion there  is  fitness  in  it.  Fitness,  surely,  has  been  the 
reason.  The  Club,  as  we  shall  see  later,  has  come  to  stand 
chiefly  for  a  certain  phase  of  realism.  Mr.  Sargent  and  Mr. 
"Wilson  Steer  have  been  dominating  personalities  in  it. 
Some  who  used  to  be  members  have  gone  to  the  Academy. 
Other  new  groups  have  been  formed.  The  Scotchmen  have 
gone  their  own  decorative  way. 

The  word  decorative  is  not  wholly  appropriate  to  describe 
this  art.  If  we  were  allowed  to  speak  of  visible  harmony 
.as  music  we  should  call  the  art  musical.  Mr.  John  Lavery's 
portraits,  for  instance,  are  Harmonies,  in  the  Whistlerian 
sense.  At  times  he  gives  them  titles  that  simply  draw 
attention  to  their  colour-schemes.  So  with  the  landscape 
painters.  They  do  not,  like  most  of  their  English  brethren, 
think  chiefly  of  the  facts,  and  try  to  represent  them  truth- 
fully, even  though,  unable  to  do  everything  at  once,  they 
must  needs  make  a  selection.  Mr.  Hornel  is  only  an  ex- 
treme instance,  with  his  children  in  the  woodlands,  of  the 
regarding  of  facts  as  mere  raw  material  for  beautiful  designs. 


SPRING 


JOHN    LAVERY 


^ 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  365 

Wc  can  think  of  these  painters  as  redyeing  natural  objects 
in  order  to  make  them  suit  their  designs.  This  impression  is 
produced  particularly  by  the  work  of  Mr.  James  Paterson. 
If  we  say  that  he  has  seen  what  he  has  painted,  we  must 
understand  a  subtle  selection  of  certain  features,  and  even 
then  we  more  than  suspect  an  inward  vision  also.  Of  course 
this  enters  into  all  art ;  but  here,  as  with  Turner,  it  asserts 
itself  strongly.  Mr.  D.  Y.  Cameron,  etcher  as  well  as  painter, 
makes  a  similar  use  of  colour,  though  with  more  reserve. 
Mr.  T.  Millie  Dow  and  Mr.  Mouat  Loudan  may  be  named 
in  the  same  connexion. 

Sir  James  Guthrie  was  a  pupil  of  Jolm  Pettie,  and  after- 
wards studied  in  Paris.  He  is  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
school,  and  is  now  President  of  the  Eoyal  Scottish  Academy. 
Strength  and  fine  characterisation  are  conspicuous  in  his 
portraits  and  subject-pictures,  while  with  something  more  of 
naturalism  he  still  maintains  the  unity  of  decorative  effect. 
Arthur  Melville  achieved  his  vivid  interpretations  of  town- 
scenes  in  Spain  and  the  East  by  means  of  variation  of  the 
Impressionist  methods.  Mr.  E.  A.  Walton,  in  portrait, 
subject,  or  landscape  painting,  delights  at  times  by  the  pure 
artistry  of  his  pictures,  and  at  other  times  admits  a  larger 
measure  of  naturalism.  The  poetry  of  strong  colour,  and  of 
the  life  and  surroundings  of  working-folk,  appeals  to  Mr.  T. 
Austen  Brown.  Mr.  Alexander  Roche,  Mr.  Coutts  Michie, 
Mr.  Joseph  Crawhall,  and  Mr.  Grosvenor  Thomas  are  other 
painters  of  the  group  who  should  be  mentioned. 

The  movement  is  only  some  twenty  years  old,  and  is  being 
carried  on  by  a  younger  generation  of  painters.  It  is  far 
removed  from  the  older  traditions  of  Scottish  art.  We  have 
only  to  think  of,  among  the  older  contemporaries  of  the 
Glasgow    men,    such    painters    as    the    two   Faeds,     Mr. 


366  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

McWhirter,  and  most  of  those  mentioned  in  tlis  last  chapter, 
to  realise  how  distinct  a  contribution  the  Glasgow  painters 
have  made  to  the  art  of  Scotland,  and  therefore  to  British 
art. 

During  the  period  covered  by  this  book  numerous 
societies  of  painters  have  been  formed  in  London  for  the 
purpose  of  separate  exhibition ;  but  in  most  cases  this  has 
not  been  done  in  the  way  of  revolt,  but  only  to  emphasise 
the  kindred  aims  of  painters  who  have  also  had  ready  access 
to  the  larger  and,  as  they  may  be  styled,  official  exhibitions. 
The  formation  of  the  New  English  Art  Club,  however,  signi- 
fied a  revolt.  It  arose  from  the  growing  influence  of  French 
art  upon  that  of  England.  English  painters  who  had  studied 
in  Paris  felt  the  need  of  a  rallying-point  in  view  of  what 
they  held  to  be  the  narrowness  of  the  Royal  Academy  in  not 
giving  sufficient  recognition  to  their  work.  Those  who  were 
thus  aggrieved  were  wont  to  discuss  the  matter  from  time  to 
time  in  Paris  and  in  London.  This  went  on  for  two  or  three 
years  without  anything  being  done,  but  eventually,  in  the 
first  days  of  1886,  a  meeting  was  held  at  the  Gallery  of  Mr; 
Colnaghi  in  Pall  Mall,  at  which  an  offer  by  him  "  to  open  an 
exhibition  for  the  better  representation  of  the  younger 
English  painters  "  was  accepted  with  enthusiasm,  A  com- 
mittee, consisting  of  Messrs.  W.  H.  Bartlett,  Gotch,  Brown, 
Solomon,  Hacker,  and  Tuke,  was  elected  to  work  with  Mr. 
Colnaghi ;  the  name  by  which  the  club  is  still  known  was 
decided  upon,  and  the  first  exhibition  was  held  in  the  follow- 
ing April. 

"We  have  already  seen  that  nonconformity  is  as  in- 
evitable, as  necessary,  we  may  say,  in  art  as  in  religion. 
Academies  and  other  official  bodies,  like  churches,  insist 
upon   traditions   which    increasing    knowledge   is    steadily 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  367 

rendering  not  merely  useless  but  harmful,  and  reform  from 
within  never  accomplishes  all  that  is  necessary.  We  have 
seen  how  strenuously  the  Romanticists  and  the  Realists 
opposed  themselves  to  the  classical  doctrine  of  the  French 
Academy  at  Rome.  Refused  admission  to  the  Salon,  the 
Impressionists  and  their  allies  organised  separate  exhibi- 
tions. To-day  there  are  two  great  Salons.  Only  turnstiled 
doorways  divide  them,  but  they  differ  widely  in  character. 
The  Pre-Raphaelite  Brethren  were  nonconformists  of  art. 
The  formation  in  1868  of  the  Belgian  Societe  Libre  des 
Beaux  Arts  has  already  been  mentioned.  Munich  and 
other  places  have  had  and  still  have  their  Secessionists. 
Instances  need  not  be  multiplied.  Freedom  in  art  cannot 
be  won  save  with  the  help  of  men  who  are  free  from 
academic  restraint. 

On  the  whole  the  new  club  was  well  received,  and  there 
was  a  fair  number  of  visitors  to  the  exhibition.  Among 
these  was  the  official  head  of  the  Royal  Academy,  Sir 
Frederick  Leigh  ton,  who  ventured  the  prophecy  that  the 
second  year  would  try  the  men  who  formed  the  club,  and 
the  third  year  probably  disband  them.  But  though  not  a 
few  of  those  who  have  at  one  time  or  another  been  members 
of  the  club  are  now  within  the  Academy,  or  have  formed 
other  groups,  the  club  is  still  alive,  has  attained  its  majority, 
and  is  holding  two  exhibitions  each  year;  while  Mr. 
Sargent,  who  contributes  so  greatly  to  the  success  of  the 
Academy  exhibitions,  remains  a  member  of  it,  and  one  of 
its  regular  exhibitors. 

The  club  is  democratic  in  constitution.  It  dispenses 
with  president  and  vice-presidents.  The  members  elect 
annually  an  executive  committee  and  honorary  secretary  and 
treasurer.     The  selecting  jury  and  hanging  committee  for 


368  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

its  exhibitions  are  elected  by  and  from  the  members,  and 
by  and  from  the  exhibitors  at  the  previous  exhibition. 
That  is  to  say,  as  artists  who  are  not  members  of  the  club 
can,  on  the  invitation  of  two  members,  submit  works  to 
the  jury,  and  thus  may  become  exhibitors,  non-members 
have  a  voice  in  the  determination  of  the  standpoint  of  the 
club.  Its  very  constitution,  therefore,  is  a  protest  against 
that  of  the  Royal  Academy,  where  all  power  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  forty  members,  even  the  associates  being  en- 
tirely without  authority.  What  would  the  forty  say  to  a 
proposal  that  the  selecting  and  hanging  committees  for  each 
of  their  exhibitions  should  be  elected  by  themselves,  the 
associates  and  the  general  body  of  exhibitors  at  the  previous 
exhibition?  What  they  would  say  to  it  we  know,  and 
this  renders  it  unnecessary  to  discuss  the  probable  effect  of 
such  a  change  in  its  working.  It  may  be  remarked,  however, 
that  there  \vould  still  be  need  for  separate  exhibitions,  but 
that,  with  the  Academy  placed  on  a  more  democratic  basis, 
they  would  not  need  to  be  in  the  nature  of  revolt. 

A  gibe  that  can  obviously  be  made  at  a  club  formed  in  the 
interest  of  painters  who  have  studied  in  France  is  that  the 
art  to  be  seen  in  its  exhibitions  is  neither  new  nor  English. 
The  equally  obvious  reply  is  that,  while  this  may  be  true,  it 
may  also  be  true  that  the  art  is  new  to  England  and  a  valu- 
able addition  to  the  resources  of  English  art.  We  who  have 
been  following  the  recent  history  of  painting  in  France  ought 
to  be  prepared  also  with  the  further  reply  that  much  that  in 
recent  years  it  has  been  possible  to  learn  in  France  better 
than  in  England,  is  in  part  a  modification  of  what  has  been 
learned  by  the  French  from  us  in  England.  We  ought 
not  to  sneer,  for  example,  when  we  see  the  name  of  M. 
Lucien  Pissarro  as  an  exhibitor  at  the  New  English  Art 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  369 

Club  ;  for  he  is  the  son  of  Camille  Pissarro,  the  companion 
of  Monet's  brief  exile  in  England  during  the  Franco-German 
war,  and  the  interested  student,  with  him,  of  Turner  and 
other  English  painters.  M.  Lucien  Pissarro's  frankly  Impres- 
sionist pictures  at  the  New  English  Art  Club  may  be 
regarded  as  in  part  the  acknowledgment  of  a  debt.  The 
preservation  of  national  character  in  art  is  not  ensured,  as 
we  have  frequently  urged  here,  by  refusal  to  learn  from  the 
art  of  other  nations.  The  example  of  some  of  our  greatest 
masters  has  been  better  followed  abroad  than  at  home,  and 
we  miss  some  of  the  best  of  their  influence  if  we  refuse  to 
look  abroad. 

The  mere  fact  of  having  studied  in  France  was  soon  felt  to 
be  too  general  a  mark  to  give  the  club  sufficient  distinction 
to  justify  its  existence,  and  a  somewhat  narrower  position 
had  to  be  adopted.  Hence,  inevitably,  there  came  selection, 
which  also  means  weeding  out.  How  this  was  accomplished 
we  need  not  stay  to  inquire.  It  is  perhaps  not  possible 
to  sum  up  in  a  phrase  what  the  club  has  chiefly  stood  for. 
One  thing  it  may  safely  be  said  to  stand  for  is  the  reduction 
to  a  minimum  of  the  kind  of  subject  in  painting  to  which 
the  epithet  literary  is  often  applied.  The  catalogues  of  its 
exhibitions  show  very  few  titles  composed  of  quotations 
from  poets,  novelists,  or  historians,  and  little  information 
that  cannot  be  gathered  from  the  picture  itself,  beyond  mere 
identity  of  place  or  portrait — and  this  is  by  no  means  always 
given — can  be  obtained  by  reference  to  the  catalogue.  We 
do  not  now  see  in  the  exhibitions  subject-pictures  by  Mr. 
Fmnk  Bramley,  Mr.  Stanhope  Forbes,  Mr.  T.  C.  Gotch,  Mr. 
Arthur  Hacker,  Mr.  Jacomb  Hood,  Mr.  T.  B.  Kennington, 
and  others  who  were  among  the  first  members  and  invited 
exliibitors,  nor  do  we  see  the  same  kind  of  thing  from  the 
2  B 


5/0  PIFTY  YEAkS  OP  MODERN  PAlNTlMG 

hands   of   other  painters  who  have   more  recently  joined 
the  club. 

Leighton  used  the  word  Impressionist  as  a  general  de- 
scription of  the  first  exhibition  held  by  the  club,  but  even 
now,  when  the  field  has  been  greatly  narrowed,  the  word, 
unless  used  in  a  very  loose  manner,  would  be  a  misnomer. 
AVe  certainly  do  not  find  Realism  in  the  sense  of  detail  for 
the  sake  of  detail,  though  the  exhibitors  as  a  rule  do  not 
concern  themselves  with  things  and  people  they  cannot 
actually  see,  and  so  are  Realists  in  one  sense  of  the  word. 
The  description  of  art  as  nature  seen  through  a  temperament 
will  be  useful  to  us  here ;  for  if  there  be  one  thing  that  the 
selecting  juries  of  the  club  do  make  a  sine  qua  non  for  the 
acceptance  of  picture  or  drawing  it  is  surely  that  it  shall  not 
merely  state  facts,  but  shall  express  the  emotion  the  facts 
have  stirred  in  the  artist,  that  it  shall  tell  not  merely  what 
the  artist  has  seen,  but  what  he  has  felt,  and,  the  "literary" 
or  dramatic  subject  being  discouraged  if  not  excluded,  it  is 
the  feeling  awakened  by  the  visible  aspect  of  quite  ordinary 
things  and  happenings  that  is  chiefly  in  question.  To  show 
that  the  common  is  only  commonplace  to  the  commonplace  is 
one  of  the  functions  of  the  New  English  Art  Club.  The 
most  ordinary  landscape,  street-scene,  interior,  or  i^erson  or 
group  of  persons,  is  seen  to  possess  qualities  the  selection  of 
which  by  the  painter  results  in  a  true  work  of  art.  This 
had  been  learned  in  France.  In  England  there  had  been 
selection  of  a  fine  subject,  not  of  what  was  fine  in  any 
subject.  Even  such  a  Realist  as  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  has  said 
— as  quoted  on  an  earlier  page — that  Millais  and  he  enforced 
their  sesthetic  aims  in  the  themes  they  treated,  "  selecting 
beautiful  objects  for  fastidious  discrimination  in  their  por- 
trayal."   This  was  the  "Pre-Raphaelite,  English"  faith;  the 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  371 

"  New  English  "  faith  was  the  one  the  French  had  arrived 
at,  with  the  help  of  Turner,  Constable,  Old  Crome,  and 
other  English  painters,  that  any  theme  can  be  treated  asstheti- 
cally.  There  are  conditions  under  which  scaffolding  is  as 
beautiful  as  are  trees  or  shipping ;  chimneys,  as  Whistler 
said,  may  rival  campanili ;  warehouses  may  not  fall  behind 
palaces,  and  he  must  be  a  sorry  specimen  of  humanity  before 
whose  portrait,  if  it  have  been  intelligently  and  sympatheti- 
cally painted,  we  need  to  say,  "God  made  him,  and  therefore 
let  him  pass  for  a  man." 

The  older  English  point  of  view,  that  what  can  ordinarily 
be  seen  is  not  a  fit  subject  for  art,  really  supposes  that  the 
artist  cannot  see  more  in  what  is  around  him  than  others  see ; 
and  when  he  shows  what  he  has  seen,  others  are  either  blind 
to  it  or  charge  him  with  exaggeration  if  not  untruthfulness. 
The  writer  stood  recently  with  a  fellow-countryman  before  a 
painting  by  Degas  of  a  woman  ironing,  and  was  asked, 
"  What  was  the  use  of  painting  that  ? "  One  could  not  but 
think  of  George  Herbert's  saying,  that  a  servant  who  swept 
a  room  as  for  God's  laws  made  drudgery  divine,  for,  though 
one  could  hardly  take  Degas  for  a  moralist  in  paint,  he  has 
so  faithfully  pictured  the  woman  at  her  work,  entirely  occu- 
pied with  it,  intent  on  putting  the  best  gloss  on  the  shirt- 
front  she  is  ironing,  that  the  picture  may  certainly  be  called 
wholesome,  even  if  we  do  not  attribute  to  it  a  moral.  It  may 
be  that  Degas,  along  with  fine  drawing  of  the  figure  and  its 
action,  was  concerned  with  no  more  than  the  diffused  light 
coming  through  the  curtained  window  from  a  narrow  street 
and  the  subdued  colour-harmonies  that  it  occasioned.  By 
this  light  and  colour  the  Englishman,  narrowly  adherent  to 
an  older  tradition  of  painting,  was  entirely  unmoved.  At 
the  Xew  English  Art  Club  we  shall  find  Mr.  Walter  Sickert 


372  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

revealing  subtle  beauties  of  light,  tone,  and  colour  in  a  mere 
corner  of  a  clingy  London  room,  or  in  its  reflection  in  a 
mirror,  and  one  seems  to  recollect  having  seen  Mr.  Sickert's 
work  summed  up  as  everything  that  the  average  Englishman 
detests,  or  something  to  that  eflect. 

The  name  of  Mr.  Wilson  Steer  is  much  honoured  at  the 
New  English  Art  Club.  He  was  one  of  its  original  members, 
and,  whether  or  not  he  has  been  tempted  to  go  elsewhere,  he 
has  remained  faithful  to  it.  Mr.  C.  J.  Holmes,  himself  a 
member  of  the  club,  has  said,  *'  Had  Claude  Monet  never 
lived,  even  Mr.  Mark  Fisher  might  not  have  painted  as  he 
does,  while  Mr.  Clausen,  Mr.  Stott,  and  Mr.  Steer  would  have 
lost  their  best  teacher."  We  have  already  spoken  of  Mr. 
Clausen  and  Mr.  Stott,  and  shall  shortly  come  to  Mr.  Fisher. 
What  Mr.  Holmes  says  of  Mr.  Steer  is  obviously  true ;  but 
he  follows  his  Monet  with  a  difference,  and  the  difference  is 
an  English  one.  If  we  are  to  think  of  any  one  but  Mr. 
Steer  when  we  are  looking  at  his  landscape  painting,  we  can 
as  readily  think  of  Constable  as  of  Monet ;  for  his  art 
remains  English,  modified  only  by  French  influence,  which 
also  has  resulted  chiefly  in  Mr.  Steer's  carrying  further  the 
treatment  of  the  effects  of  light  of  whicli  Constable  was  the 
first  investigator.  Monet  interested  himself  mainly  in  tran- 
quil effects  of  light  under  unclouded  skies.  Mr.  Steer  is  a 
true  son  of  the  land  of  cloud  and  mist.  The  alternate  light 
and  shadow  on  a  landscape  overhung  by  slowly  moving, 
detached  masses  of  cloud,  the  blaze  of  light  in  clear  or  misty 
air,  when  the  spectator  faces  the  sun,  trees  brilliantly 
illuminated  by  the  sun  and  intensifying  the  solemn  blue- 
blackness  of  a  thunder-cloud  behind  them,  such  are  the 
visual  memories  that  remain  of  Mr.  Steer's  pictures.  There 
is   mere   suggestion,   yet   abundant  suggestion,  of  nature's 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  373 

infinite  detail,  and  the  broken,  crumbly  colour  ensures  the 
sense  of  atmospheric  vibration.  The  pictures  do  not  lack 
composition,  but  it  is  not  so  much  a  design  traced  on  the 
surface  of  the  canvas,  which  it  is  the  artist's  purpose  to  make 
us  forget,  as  such  an  arrangement  of  forms  subordinated  to 
the  subtle  rendering  of  varied  tones  as  will  convey  to  the 
eye  a  sense  of  luminous  atmosphere  stretching  far  away 
behind  the  frame  that  encloses  the  picture. 

Mr.  Steer  has  applied  the  same  method  of  painting  to 
portraiture.  We  may  say,  and  in  so  saying  we  go  a  long 
way  towards  summarising  the  standpoint  of  the  New 
English  Art  Club,  that  he  insists  upon  light — colour 
becoming  variety  of  light — truth,  which  is  also  beauty, 
of  atmospheric  tones  and  vibration,  the  suggestion  every- 
where of  movement,  either  of  objects  or  of  light  upon 
objects,  and  only  so  much  statement  of  form  and  detail 
as  is  necessary  for  essential  expressiveness  under  the  actual 
conditions  of  seeing. 

Mr.  Steer  was  a  pupil  of  Cabanel  in  Paris;  Mr.  Mark 
Fisher,  an  American  by  birth,  was  a  pupil  of  Gleyre.  They 
both  learned  much  from  painters  who  were  not  thus 
definitely  their  teachers.  Mr.  Fisher,  after  his  return  to 
America,  found  so  little  encouragement  there  that  he  came 
over  to  England  and  settled  here.  His  landscapes,  taken 
usually  from  cattle-pastures  by  lowland  rivers,  show,  in  the 
difference  between  early  and  later  examples,  that  he  con- 
sciously set  himself  to  render  above  everything  else  the 
effect  of  vibrating  light.  In  so  doing,  however,  he  confines 
himself  to  a  narrower  range  of  atmospheric  subject  than 
Mr.  Steer.  Mr.  J.  Buxton  Knight  only  appears  after  the 
earliest  lists  of  the  club's  membership,  and  this  is  perhaps 
significant  of  the  club's  specialising  on  ways  of  seeing  and 


374  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

painting,  rather  than,  as  at  first,  upon  the  place  of  training ; 
for  Mr.  Knight  was  a  pupil  in  the  Royal  Academy  Schools. 
Again,  it  is  the  quality  of  light  in  his  forcible  landscapes 
that  chiefly  arrests  us.  James  Charles,  one  of  the  first 
members  of  the  club,  but  early  leaving  it,  put  the  realisa- 
tion of  light  in  the  very  front  of  his  art. 

An  original  member  of  the  club  who  still  belongs  to  it  is 
Mr.  Frederick  Brown,  the  Slade  Professor  at  University 
College;  and  not  only  is  he  an  exponent  of  the  kind  of 
seeing  and  record  sketched  above,  but  he  has  the  training  of 
numerous  pupils,  whose  work  plainly  declares  his  influence 
and  that  of  the  group  of  painters  with  which  he  is  associ- 
ated. Mr.  J.  L.  Henry,  a  painter  of  landscapes  marked  by 
breadth  and  tone  and  atmospheric  feeling,  has  also  been 
a  member  from  the  first,  as  also  has  Mr.  W.  W.  Russell. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  chronicle  its  membership  through- 
out, but  Mr.  George  Henry,  who  floods  his  portraits  and 
subject-pictures  with  light  and  gleaming  colour,  and  Mr. 
Bertram  Priestman  should  be  mentioned.  There  is  also  Mr. 
A.  D.  Peppercorn,  who  has  put  his  own  interpretation  upon 
Impressionism.  British  art  would  be  sorely  impoverished 
if  those  who  at  one  time  or  another  have  been  connected 
with  the  club  could  be  removed  from  our  annals.  Among 
the  younger  painters  who  are  now  members  Mr.  William 
Orpen,  who  in  his  portraits  and  figure-subjects  may  almost 
be  called  a  magician  of  the  brush,  rendering  tone  and  light 
and  significant  form,  and  the  character  of  those  whose 
portraits  he  paints,  with  subtle  penetration,  deserves  to  be 
mentioned  first.  The  fine  quality  of  Mr.  William  Ro then- 
stein's  portraits  of  his  co-religionists  has  been  officially 
recognised  by  the  acceptance  of  one  of  his  paintings  for  the 
Tate  Gallery.      The  club  counts  among  its  members  that 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  375 

painter  of  delicate  colour  fantasies,  Mr.  W.  A.  Conder;  and 

ERRATUM 

Page  375,  firat  line,  for  Mr.  W.  A.  Conder, 
read  Mr.  Charles  Conder. 


we  are  to  halt.  No  one  else,  perhaps,  could  be  so  appro- 
priately taken  as  a  typical  exponent  in  this  country  of  the 
movement  that,  since  the  days  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood,  has  done  more  than  anything  else  to  vivify 
the  art  of  painting.  At  least  the  century's  close  found  him, 
and  he  still  is,  much  in  evidence.  We  have  dated  our 
special  period  from  the  time  when  the  French  painter  Corot 
reached  his  artistic  maturity ;  and  we  end  with  an  American 
painter  who,  like  Whistler,  was  trained  in  France  and  made 
England  the  country  of  his  adoption.  To  Corot  light  was 
so  much  exquisite  poetry,  sweetly  or  pensively  idyllic.  The 
gentle  temperament  of  the  man  dominated  his  art.  He  was 
content  with  a  world  of  exquisite,  warm  or  pearly  greys  and 
quiet,  restful  greens.  Some  of  those  who,  in  various  countries, 
beginning  with  his  own,  have,  like  him  and  like  others  who 
were  immediately  influenced  by  him,  sought  light,  if  not 
above  all  things,  yet  as  an  essential,  have  almost  challenged 
the  sun  in  his  splendour.  No  period  in  art  can  be  arbi- 
trarily detached  from  what  has  preceded  it;  and  the 
influence  of  Turner  and  Constable  upon  this  modern  move- 
ment has  been  sufficiently  emphasised  here.  Yet  it  would 
at  once  seem  wrong  to  say  "From  Constable  to  Sargent," 


374  FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

painting,  rather  than,  as  at  first,  upon  the  place  of  training ; 


numerous  pupils,  whose  work  plainly  declares  his  influence 
and  that  of  the  group  of  painters  with  which  he  is  associ- 
ated. Mr.  J.  L.  Henry,  a  painter  of  landscapes  marked  by 
breadth  and  tone  and  atmospheric  feeling,  has  also  been 
a  member  from  the  first,  as  also  has  Mr.  W.  W.  Eussell. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  chronicle  its  membership  through- 
out, but  Mr.  George  Henry,  who  floods  his  portraits  and 
subject-pictures  with  light  and  gleaming  colour,  and  Mr. 
Bertram  Priestman  should  be  mentioned.  There  is  also  Mr. 
A.  D.  Peppercorn,  who  has  put  his  own  interpretation  upon 
Impressionism.  British  art  would  be  sorely  impoverished 
if  those  who  at  one  time  or  another  have  been  connected 
with  the  club  could  be  removed  from  our  annals.  Among 
the  younger  painters  who  are  now  members  Mr.  William 
Orpen,  who  in  his  portraits  and  figure-subjects  may  almost 
be  called  a  magician  of  the  brush,  rendering  tone  and  light 
and  significant  form,  and  the  character  of  those  whose 
portraits  he  paints,  with  subtle  penetration,  deserves  to  be 
mentioned  first.  The  fine  quality  of  Mr.  William  Rothen- 
stein's  portraits  of  his  co-religionists  has  been  officially 
recognised  by  the  acceptance  of  one  of  his  paintings  for  the 
Tate  Gallery.      The  club  counts  among  its  members  that 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  375 

painter  of  delicate  colour  fantasies,  Mr.  W.  A.  Conder;  and 
Mr.  A.  McEvoy's  interiors,  pervaded  -with  atmosphere,  are 
always  a  welcome  feature  of  its  exhibitions.  Mr.  Francis 
Dodd  should  also  be  mentioned ;  and  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  Mr.  D.  S.  MacColl,  Mr.  Roger  E.  Fry,  Mr.  C.  J. 
Holmes,  and  Mr.  A.  L.  Baldry,  all  of  them  painters  who 
are  still  better  known  as  art  administrators  or  as  writers 
upon  art,  are  members  of  the  club. 

Mr.  Sargent  has  been  kept  to  the  last,  as  his  name 
appears  in  the  title  of  this  book  to  mark  the  point  at  which 
we  are  to  halt.  No  one  else,  perhaps,  could  be  so  appro- 
priately taken  as  a  typical  exponent  in  this  country  of  the 
movement  that,  since  the  days  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood,  has  done  more  than  anything  else  to  vivify 
the  art  of  painting.  At  least  the  century's  close  found  him, 
and  he  still  is,  much  in  evidence.  We  have  dated  our 
special  period  from  the  time  when  the  French  painter  Corot 
reached  his  artistic  maturity ;  and  we  end  with  an  American 
painter  who,  like  Whistler,  was  trained  in  France  and  made 
England  the  country  of  his  adoption.  To  Corot  light  was 
so  much  exquisite  poetry,  sweetly  or  pensively  idyllic.  The 
gentle  temperament  of  the  man  dominated  his  art.  He  was 
content  with  a  world  of  exquisite,  warm  or  pearly  greys  and 
quiet,  restful  greens.  Some  of  those  who,  in  various  countries, 
beginning  with  his  own,  have,  like  him  and  like  others  who 
were  immediately  influenced  by  him,  sought  light,  if  not 
above  all  things,  yet  as  an  essential,  have  almost  challenged 
the  sun  in  his  splendour.  No  period  in  art  can  be  arbi- 
trarily detached  from  what  has  preceded  it;  and  the 
influence  of  Turner  and  Constable  upon  this  modern  move- 
ment has  been  sufficiently  emphasised  here.  Yet  it  would 
at  once  seem  wrong  to  say  "From  Constable  to  Sargent," 


376  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

or  "From  Turner  to  Sargent."  The  line  of  advance  has  not 
been  continuous  in  this  country.  Tlie  Pre-Raphaelite  move- 
ment was  a  protest  against  a  dull  formalism  that  had 
invaded  English  art,  and  if  this  break  were  ignored,  we 
still  could  not  get  to  Mr.  Sargent  by  beginning  with  !Mr. 
Holman  Hunt;  but  we  can  get  to  him,  right  from  Constable 
and  Turner,  by  way  of  Corot  and  Courbet  and  their 
successors,  who  were  also  their  younger  contemporaries,  the 
French  Impressionists;  for  though  Mr.  Sargent  cannot 
strictly  be  affiliated  to  the  Impressionist  group,  the  art  he 
learned  in  Paris  was  a  similar  advance  to  that  which  they 
made  on  what  we  may  call  the  poetic  realism  of  Corot  and 
the  prose  realism  of  Courbet. 

Mr.  Sargent,  it  has  been  said,  is  by  parentage  an 
American.  I  have  already  given  reasons  for  not  including 
him  in  the  sketch  of  American  painting  given  in  an  earlier 
chapter.  The  same  thing  has  had  to  be  done  in  the  case 
of  Whistler  and  of  other  painters  who  are  American  by 
parentage.  As  an  artist  Mr.  Sargent  belongs  first  to  France 
and  then  to  England.  He  was  not  even  born  in  America, 
but  at  Florence,  in  1856.  His  father  was  a  doctor  of  medi- 
cine who  had  practised  in  Philadeli^hia,  but  had  retired  at 
the  time  of  the  birth  of  his  son.  The  future  artist  first 
studied  in  the  Academy  at  Florence,  and  then,  at  the  age 
of  seventeen,  became  the  pupil  of  Carolus  Duran  in  Paris. 
The  drawings  that  he  presented,  to  show  what  he  could 
already  do,  won  the  approval — with  reserves — of  his  master 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  his  fellow-pupils.  He  was  a  facile 
worker,  direct  in  his  methods;  and  this  quality  was  con- 
firmed in  him  by  the  teacher  he  had  chosen,  who  was 
nothing  if  not  economical  of  labour,  which,  be  it  said,  the 
phrase  being  interpreted,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  being 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  yJ^ 

economical  of  work.  The  method  he  acquired  was,  by 
vigorous,  direct,  sweeping  In'ushwork,  to  map  out  the  various 
planes  of  liis  subject,  and  to  add  what  was  necessary  to 
give  the  illusion  of  reality  with  as  little  labour  as  possible. 
He  has  done  this,  chiefly  in  portraiture  but  also  iu  subject- 
pictures  and  landscape,  with  success,  to  express  which  the 
adjective  astonishing,  commonly  used  for  the  purpose,  is 
quite  justifiable.  Though  his  technique  differs  widely  from 
that  of  Monet,  the  general  result  is  the  same :  that  which 
when  closely  looked  at  is  a  mere  daub  or  smear,  as  Monet's 
paint  when  thus  looked  at  becomes  mere  meaningless  dabs, 
seems,  when  seen  from  a  certain  distance,  to  put  it  briefly, 
whatever  it  is  desired  to  seem.  There  are  form  and  move- 
ment and  texture,  as  well  as  enveloping  atmosphere;  in 
a  word,  there  is  a  strong  illusion  of  actuality. 

Is  the  result  superficial,  mere  brilliant  sketching  ?  Some 
of  his  admirers  are  so  much  at  pains  to  prove  that  it  is  not 
so  as  to  make  us  almost  have  doubts  upon  the  subject. 
One  critic  of  his  art,  a  fellow-painter,  more  than  a  genera- 
tion his  senior,  said  that  his  portraits  existed  but  did  not 
live.  By  this  was  probably  meant  that  all  we  learn  from 
them  of  their  subjects  is  only  what  a  very  brief  interview 
would  reveal  to  us.  There  is  no  sense  of  the  understanding 
and  sympathy  that  come  with  longer  acquaintance.  One 
of  his  fellow-countrymen,  Mr.  Charles  H.  Caffin,  while  con- 
tending that  "to  say  his  characterisation  is  slap-dash  and 
superficial  is  surely  going  too  far,"  can  yet  say  that  Sargent 
is  a  picture-maker  before  he  is  a  portraitist,  and  that  his 
work,  notwithstanding  its  actuality,  "has  not  the  perma- 
nence of  feeling,  either  in  its  characterisation  or  method ; 
that  suggestion  of  perennial,  stable  truth  which,  so  far  as 
we  can  judge  from  the  past,  would  ensure  it  a  place  among 


378  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  great  old  masters  of  the  future."  Another  of  his 
fellow-countrymen,  Mr.  Samuel  Isham,  whose  book  on 
American  painting  has  already  been  quoted,  says  his  por- 
traits suggest  that  he  does  not  care  at  all  "for  the  people 
he  paints,  either  for  their  past  or  future,  or  for  anything 
except  the  moment  that  they  stand  before  him  twiddling 
their  watch-chains  or  spreading  their  fans,"  but  that  of  this 
moment  we  have  an  absolute,  and  sometimes  a  terrible 
record,  "for  the  artist,  without  illusions  himself,  is  pitiless 
for  those  of  his  sitters." 

But  is  a  portrait  painter  justified  in  being  pitiless  on  the 
strength  of  little  more  than  a  momentary  impression  ?  One 
can  well  understand  that  a  fashionable  painter  may  condemn 
himself  to  take  as  subjects  persons  in  whose  character  he 
can  feel  no  interest,  and  whose  weaknesses  he  may  cynically 
emphasise.  Thus  Mr.  Caffin  can  say,  "  The  elegant  shallow- 
ness of  so  many  of  his  portraits  is  true  enough  in  a  general 
way,  and  very  likely  in  the  individual  case."  But  it  often 
seems  as  if  the  habit  of  not  getting  into  intimate  personal 
sympathy  with  his  subjects  had  become  so  fixed  that  even 
where  there  is  something  worth  recording  he  has  failed  to 
give  more  than  the  expression  of  his  sitter  at  what  may 
easily  not  be  a  self -revealing  moment,  that,  namely,  of  the 
sitting.  Two  of  the  old  masters  of  portrait  painting, 
Velasquez  and  Frans  Hals,  are  often  mentioned  in  connexion 
with  Sargent.  Actuality,  though  arrived  at  by  different 
methods,  is  a  quality  of  the  work  of  both  of  them.  Yet  we 
do  not  think  of  them  as  not  caring  for  their  sitters,  their  past 
and  their  future,  or  as  being  pitiless  towards  them.  AVere 
they  more  fortunate  in  their  sitters  than  Mr.  Sargent,  or 
were  their  sitters  more  fortunate  in  having  them  as  their 
interpreters  ?    Tennyson,  in  well-known  lines  written  after  a 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  379 

talk  with  Watts,  describes  the  portrait  painter  as  poring  on 

a  face  until  he — 

Divinely  thro'  all  hindrance  finds  tlic  man 
Behind  it,  and  so  paints  him  that  his  face, 
The  shape  and  colour  of  a  mind  and  life, 
Lives  for  his  children,  ever  at  its  best 
And  fullest. 

One  does  not  find  even  Mr.  Sargent's  admirers  claiming 
such  truth  as  this  for  his  art.  Where  sympathetic  truthful- 
ness is  unhesitatingly  affirmed  of  his  work  is  in  his  portraits 
of  children,  and  here  there  is  no  room  for  pitilessness  or 
cynicism.  If  we  may  not  call  his  portraits  superficial,  we 
certainly  cannot  call  them  profound.  Their  vivid  actuality 
nothing  but  the  ravages  of  time  can  take  from  them,  and 
this  and  their  piquant  mise  en  scene  may  well  win  admira- 
tion for  them  so  long  as  they  endure ;  but  with  this  may 
there  not  go  the  regret  that  as  characterisation  they  are  not 
to  be  trusted,  indeed  are  to  be  suspected?  For,  to  many 
people,  they  are  even  more  than  suspect  already.  It  is  not 
in  this  way  that  we  think  of  any  other  of  our  chief  portrait 
painters. 

Mr.  Sargent's  landscapes  have  little  importance  in  com- 
parison with  his  portraits.  They  are  in  the  nature  of 
recreation.  But  they  are  akin  to  the  portraits.  They  are 
not  the  work  of  one  who  has  lived  with  the  scenes  painted. 
They  are  records  of  a  traveller's  hasty  glimpses,  and  they  are 
brilliant  things  of  their  kind.  What  a  complete  contmst 
there  is  between  them  and  the  landscapes  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  realists  !  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  went  to  Syria  and 
laboriously  painted  the  gullies  and  defiles  of  the  mountains 
of  Moab  beyond  the  Dead  Sea  in  his  picture  T7ie  Stapegoat. 
Mr.   Sargent  goes   to  Syria,    and  his  picture  of  the  same 


38o  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

mountains  is  a  wonderful  rendering  mainly  of  quivering 
light  and  heat.  John  Brett  went,  on  Ruskin's  recommenda- 
tion, to  the  Val  d'Aosta,  and  painted  it,  as  Ruskin  said,  so  as 
to  give  "  the  power  of  visiting  a  place,  reasoning  about  it, 
and  knowing  it,  just  as  if  we  were  there,  except  only  that  we 
cannot  stir  from  our  place  nor  look  behind  us."  Mr.  Sargent 
goes  to  the  Alps,  and  paints  a  picture  of  them  which  makes 
us  feel,  even  Avhen  we  see  it  in  a  London  exhibition,  as  if  we 
were  before  the  scene  itself.  His  record,  also,  tells  us  much 
about  the  past,  and  also  about  the  future,  of  the  Alps :  it 
shows  that  slowly,  if  surely,  they  are  crumbling  to  decay. 
But  having  told  us  what  a  glimpse  would  reveal,  it  tells  us 
no  more.  The  New  English  Art  Club  Exhibitions  contain 
many  such  brilliant  glimpses  by  him  at  natural  scenery  and 
at  architecture  of  the  towns  to  which  he  has  gone  holiday- 
making.  Ilis  portraits  go  chiefly  to  the  Academy,  because 
that  institution  enjoys  social  prestige ;  and  people  who  can 
afford  to  pay  large  sums  for  their  portraits  do  not  want  them 
to  be  exhibited  in  a  little  room  up  a  Bond  Street  yard.  But 
whatever  Mr.  Sargent  paints  and  wherever  he  exhibits,  he 
keeps  us  very  near  to,  if  not  upon  the  surface,  both  of 
things  and  people.  He  is  not  an  interpreter.  We  need  not 
complain  of  this.  We  can  accept  him  for  what  he  is :  a 
brilliant  recorder  of  swift  impressions.  Apart  from  other 
considerations,  his  dexterous  craftsmanship,  his  instinct  for 
what  is  telling  in  light  and  colour,  are  fit  things  for  our 
delight  and  admiration.  If  only  we  could  be  sure  that  in- 
difference in  his  portraiture  does  not  at  least  come  perilously 
near  to  cynicism ! 

With  Mr.  Sargent  we  ought  to  end.  But  place  must  be 
found  to  praise  the  intense  actuality,  the  largeness,  vigour 
and  freshness,  the  subtle  di'aughtsmanship  and  the  sense  of 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  381 

(  olour,  and  the  sympathetic  characterisation  that  marked  the 
l)()rtraits  and  portrait  groups  of  the  late  Charles  W.  Furse. 

We  have  come  to  the  end  ot  our  survey  of  the  painting 
of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  What  has  it 
shown  us  ?  We  have  seen  that  there  have  been  some  posi- 
tive gains.  The  realistic  side  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  move- 
ment has  given  us  the  close  study  of  the  marvellous  detail 
of  nature,  which  has  at  least  quickened  our  sight  and  added 
to  our  means  of  enjoyment.  And,  as  we  have  contended, 
tliis  literalness,  though  not  essential  to  art,  is  not  necessarily 
alien  to  it,  but  can  exist  along  with  beauty.  It  has  been 
said  that  Pre-Raphaelitism  could  only  have  risen  among  a 
Teutonic  people.  If  this  be  so,  still  the  Teutons  have  their 
rights;  and  were  truth,  and  expressiveness  of  face  and 
gesture — which  the  movement  also  secured  for  us — incom- 
patible with  beauty,  some  of  us,  at  least,  would  not  wish  to 
see  them  banished  from  art. 

We  need  not  labour  the  contention  that  Impressionism, 
giving  effects  of  light  and  colour  and  atmosphere  as  they 
had  never  been  given  before,  has  not  only  already  accom- 
plished much,  but  has  also  added  largely  to  the  resources  of 
the  art  of  the  future.  Again  our  sight  has  been  quickened, 
and  the  visible  world,  not  in  exceptional  places  and  under 
unusual  conditions  alone,  but  everywhere  and  under  quite 
ordinary  conditions,  has  for  us  a  beauty  it  had  not  for  those 
who  knew  not  Monet  and  his  friends. 

Such  are  our  chief  gains.  They  have  value  for  us.  What 
use  the  future  will  make  of  them,  how  it  will  employ  them 
in  art,  we  do  not  know ;  nor  can  we  say  how  the  use  made 
of  them  by  those  who  first  discovered  and  used  them  will 
be  estimated  in  the  future.  Art  has  certainly  been  brought 
into  closer  touch  with  nature  and  life  by  means  of  them. 


382  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

Has  art  itself  suffered  in  the  process  %  It  might  be  so,  and 
yet  we  might  not  need  to  be  cast  down.  In  no  sphere  of 
life  and  thought  do  new  discoveries  at  once  find  their  proper 
place. 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  new  has  not  made  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  old,  with  such  inevitable  change  as  the 
years  must  bring,  impossible.  We  found  that  Classicism 
struggled  in  vain  for  monopoly  when  Romanticism  demanded 
a  place.  The  demand  was  enforced,  but  classical  art  was 
not  thereby  refused  a  place ;  and,  though  modified,  it  has 
held  on,  alongside  Eomanticism  and  the  later  Eealism  and 
Impressionism.  In  all  these  things  we  are  the  heirs  of  the 
ages.  We  have  what  we  ourselves  have  gained  \  and  none 
the  less  we  have,  or  we  may  have,  what  the  past  has  be- 
queathed to  us,  though  inevitably,  be  it  said  again,  with  a 
difference. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  art  of  our  own  country  attests 
its  vitality  and  the  width  of  its  range,  both  in  subject  and 
in  all  that  can  be  covered  by  the  word  technique.  We  have 
our  classical,  our  romantic,  our  realistic  and  our  impressionist 
painters.  Ruskin,  in  the  Oxford  lecture  more  than  once 
referred  to  already,  maintained  that  our  painters  could  never 
be  successful  in  the  higher  fields  of  ideal  or  theological  art. 
But  surely  such  men  as  Watts,  Rossetti,  and  Burne-Jones 
have  at  least  gone  far  to  bring  this  prophecy  to  naught.  It 
might  even  be  urged  that  they  had  anticipated  its  disproof. 
May  we  not  also  congratulate  ourselves  on  having  at  least 
made  a  beginning  of  enjoying  art  for  art's  sake?  And 
surely  we  can  do  this  and  yet  also  enjoy  the  subject  in  art. 

In  one  respect  our  art  has  failed  adequately  to  develop 
during  the  half-century.  We  have  little  to  show  of  mural 
painting ;  and  much  of  what  we  have  to  show  is  not  good, 


PAINTING  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  383 

is  only  easel  painting  on  a  large  scale.  It  is  lamentable  that 
it  can  be  seriously  urged  that  the  attempt  should  not  be 
made  to  add  to  the  mural  paintings  in  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment because  we  have  not  artists  capable  of  doing  such 
work.  The  reply  has  been  made,  and  rightly  so,  that  we 
cannot  succeed  unless  we  try.  The  question  must  not  be 
discussed  here.  But  some  of  our  painters  have  shown  them- 
selves to  be  fitted  for  such  work ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  next  fifty  years  will  see  this  reproach  removed  from  our 
art.  Reference  to  this  subject  reminds  one  that  no  mention 
has  hitherto  been  made  here  of  an  artist  who  is  a  master 
of  decorative  art,  Mr.  Frank  Brangwyn. 

It  is  perhaps  not  out  of  place  to  mention  the  great 
increase  in  the  number  of  art  galleries  during  the  half- 
century.  Not  only  is  there  now  a  National  Gallery  of 
British  Art  in  London,  but  the  provincial  cities  that  have 
long  had  galleries  have  been  adding  to  them  or  building 
new  ones ;  and  no  town  that  sufficiently  respects  itself  now 
thinks  it  can  do  without  an  art  gallery.  This  cannot  be 
without  effect  upon  our  art.  For  one  thing,  it  must  bring 
it  into  closer  touch  with  the  people.  We  may  hope  that 
the  municipalities  will  in  the  future  do  much  to  encourage 
mural  painting.  We  have  plenty  of  examples  in  foreign 
countries,  and,  at  home,  such  instances  as  the  work  of 
Ford  Madox  Brown  in  the  Manchester  Town  Hall  and  the 
paintings  in  the  Glasgow  Municipal  Buildmgs.  Painting 
with  us  is  too  much  a  matter  of  exhibitions  of  easel-pictures 
destmed  for  private  houses  or  for  public  collections  of 
pictures  hung  more  or  less  promiscuously  on  the  walls  of 
otherwise  empty  rooms.  The  closer  alliance  of  the  art  with 
architecture  is  desirable  both  in  its  own  interest  and  for 
the  expressiveness  which  is  thereby  given  to  public  build- 


384  FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 

ings.  There  is  abundant  opportunity  in  town-lialls,  libraries, 
concert  halls,  and  other  buildings;  and  mural  paintings 
might  well  be  more  frequently  introduced  into  art  galleries 
also,  as  in  the  case  of  those  by  Puvis  de  Chavannes  in  some 
of  the  provincial  art  galleries  of  France.  IJeyond  municipal 
buildings  there  are  also,  of  course,  the  national  buildings 
and  the  churches ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  growing 
tendency  to  decorate  the  more  important  commercial  build- 
ings with  both  painting  and  sciTlpture. 

It  has  not  been  possible  to  say  anything  here  about  the 
art  of  water-colour  painting,  or  the  related  arts  of  drawing 
in  black-and-Avhite,  etching,  and  engraving.  We  may  just 
note  the  tendency  there  has  been  for  water-colourists  to 
seek  almost  to  rival  the  strength  of  oil-painting,  with  in- 
evitable loss  of  much  of  the  delicate  charm  of  the  art  as 
it  used  to  be  practised.  Still,  no  deductions  can  surely 
forbid  us  to  affirm  that,  during  the  half-century,  our  art  has 
not  been  unworthy  of  its  earlier  history,  has  kept  well 
abreast  at  least  of  the  art  of  other  countries,  has  accom- 
plished some  things  that  can  be  called  great,  and  gives  us 
now  no  reason  to  fear  for  its  future. 


INDEX 


Abbey,  E.  A.,  270,  316 
Alexander,  J.  W.,  274 
Alexandre,  Arsene,  207-8 
Allan,  Robert  W.,  347 
Alliugham,  William,  174 
Anglada,  Hermen,  264 
Anquetin,  210 
Arnold,  Matthew,  6,  116 
Aumonier,  James,  351 

Baldry,  A.  L.,  375 
Baron,  Theodore,  250 
Bartlett,  W.  H.,  345,  366 
BaskirtscheflF,  Marie,  195 
Bastida,  Sorolla  y,  264 
Bastien-Lepage,  194-5 
Bate,  Percy,  162,  184 
Baudry,  Paul,  215,  216 
Bayet,  C,  8 

Beaumont,  Sir  George,  3 
Benson,  F.  W.,  273 
Besnard,  Paul  Albert,  202-3 
Bidault,  Xavier,  9,  61 
Bischopp,  Christotfel,  241 
Blake,  William,  218,  340 
Blum,  Robert,  274 
Boecklin,  Arnold,  208 
Boldini,  Giovanni,  232,  265 
Bonheur,  Rosa,  212 
Bonington,  R.  P., 61,  62,  82 
Bonnat,  Leon,  230 
Bonvin,  Fran9oi8,  230 
Boucher,  Fran9ois,  9 
Boudin,  L.  E.,  4,  73  et  seq.,  78, 

80 
Boughton,  G.  H.,  321 
Bouguereau,  W.  A.,  215 
Boufanger,  Hippolyte,  229,  249 

2  c  385 


Bouvier,  Arthur,  250 

Braekeleer,  Henri  de,  246 

Bramley,  Frank,  326 

Brangwyn,  Frank,  383 

Brehan,  230 

Breton,  Jules,  193  et  seq. 

Brett,  John,  163  et  seq. 

Brickdale,  Eleanor  F.,  186 

Bridgman,  F.  A.,  272 

Brown,  Arnesby,  348 

Brown,    Prof.     Frederick,    366, 

374 

Brown,  Ford  Madox,  13,  14,  17 
etseq.,  28,  35,  41,  48,  S^  129 
et  seq.,  137,  146  et  seq.,  155  et 
seq.,  161,  163,  167-8,  180, 
183-4,  186-7,  191,  200,  280, 
303.  306,  335 

Brown,  T.  Austen,  365 

Browning,  Robert,  112,  150,  154, 
172 

Brush,  G.  de  Forest,  273 

Buchanan,  Robert,  171 

Burne-Jones,  Sir  Edward,  78,  93 
et  seq.,  138,  144,  173  et  seq., 
177  etseq.,  184,  185,  188,  191, 
306,  307,  357 

Burne-Jones,  Lady,  358 

Burroughs,  13ryson,  273 

Burton,  W.  S.,  157  et  seq. 

Butin,  Ulysse,  198 

Butler,  Lady,  316 


Cabanel,  Alexandre,  215 
Caffin,    Charles    H.,    275, 

378 
Calderon,  P.  H.,  163 
Cameron,  D.  Y.,  365 


377, 


386 


FIFTY  YEARS  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  149 
Carriere,  Eugene,  202  et  seq. 
Carsteus,  A.  J.,  257 
Casado  del  Alisal,  264 
Cassatt,  Mary,  121,  206,  271 
Cazin,  Charles,  230 
Cezanne,  Paul,  97,  101-2 
Chan  trey.    Sir    Francis    L.,    3, 

155 
Chaplin,  Charles,  230 
Chardin,  J.  S.,  9 
Charles,  James,  374 
Chase,  William  M. ,  272 
Chintreuil,  Antoiue,  212 
Chodowiecki,  Daniel,  251 
Claude,  75,  82 
Glaus,  Emile,  250 
Clausen,  George,  295,  330  et  seq., 

353 
Clays,  P,  J.,  250 
Cogniet,  Leon,  229 
Cole,  George  Vicat,  344 
Cole,  Thomas,  267 
Collier,  The  Hon,  John,  329 
Collins,  Charles  Alston,  157 
Collinson,  James,  28,  41,  184 
Conder,  W.  A.,  375 
Constable,  John,  2,  55,  61  et  seq., 

72,    75   et  seq.,    82,    89,    237, 

279 
Cooper,  T.  Sidney,  337 
Copley,  J.  S.,  266,  267 
Corbet,  M.  Ridley,  352 
Cornelius,  Peter,  17,  252 
Corot,    Camille,    4,   62,    64,    67 

et  seq.,  77  et  seq.,  96,  268 
Cottet,  Charles,  197 
Courbet,    Gustave,    58,    59,    66, 

114,  121,  193,  229-30 
Couture,  Thomas,  58,  108,  109 
Cox,  David,  76,  86,  164,  165 
Cox,  Kenyon,  273 
Crane,  Walter,  182 
Crawhall,  Joseph,  365 
Crofts,  Ernest,  316 
Crome,  John,  77,  82 
Crowe,  Eyre,  316 

Dagnan-Bouveret,  196 
Dannatt,  William  L.,  272 
Dante,  168,  172 


Daubigny,  Charles  Fran9ois,  212 
Daumier,  Honore,  60,  227 
David,    Jacques    Louis,    10,    54 

et  seq. ,  23 1 
Da  vies,  A.  B.,  273 
Davis,  H.  W.  B.,  161,  163 
Decamps,  Alexandre,  227 
D'Espagnat,  Georges,  210 
Defregger,  Franz,  255 
Degas,  Edgard,  iiget  seq.,  1 28, 37 1 
De  Groux,  Charles,  248 
De  Jonghe,  Gustave,  247 
Delacroix,    Eugene,    55    et    seq., 

237 
Delaroche,  Paul,  57,  169 
Delaunay,  Elie,  216 
De  Morgan,  Mrs.  Evelyn,  184 
Desbrosses,  Jean,  212 
Detaille,  Edouard,  213,  223 
Deverell,  Walter  Howell,  184 
Dewhurst,  Wynford,  208 
Dewing,  Thomas  W. ,  273 
Diaz,  Nai'cisse  V.,  62,  64 
Dickens,  Charles,  44-5 
Dicksee,  Frank,  309 
Didier-Pouget,  209 
Dodd,  Francis,  375 
Domingo,  Francisco,  264 
Dou,  Gerard,  38 
Doughty,  Thomas,  267 
Dow,  T.  Millie,  365 
Draper,  Herbert,  310 
Du  Maurier,  George,  60 
Dubois,  232,  246 
Dupr^,  Jules,  64 
Duran,  Carolus,  232 
Durand,  A.  B.,  267 
Durand-Ruel,  82,  12d 
Duranty,  229 
Duret,  Theodore,  61,  76,  81,  97, 

loi,  102,  119,  360 
Duveneck,  F.,  272 

East,  Alfred,  348 
Eaton,  Wyatt,  272 
Elliott,  Charles  Loring,  268 
Etty,  William,  120,  135 

Fantin-Latour,  Henri,  118,  233 
Farquharson,  David,  346 
Farquharson,  Joseph,  346 


INDEX 


3^7 


Feuerbach,  258 
Fielding,  Copley,  61 
Fildes,  Sir  Luke,  324-5 
Fisher,  Mark,  373 
Flaudrin,  Hipj)olyte,  216 
Forbes,  Stanhope,  329 
Fortuny,  Mariano,  264 
Fragonard,  J.  H.,  9 
Frith,  W.  P.,3i3>  3^7,  335 
Fromentin,  Eugene,  228 
Fry,  Roger  E.,  375 
Fiihrich,  Joseph,  252 
Furse,  Charles  W.,  381 

Gaillard,  Ferdinand,  232 
Gainsborough,  Thomas,  87 
Gallait,  Louis,  245 
Gauguin,  210 
Gay,  Walter,  272 
Gerard,  Francois,  55 
Gdricault,  Theodore,  55 
Ger6me,  Leon,  229 
Girodet,  55 
Gleyre,  Charles,  215 
Goodwin,  Albert,  349 
Gotch,  T.  C,  310,  366 
Gow,  A.  C,  316 
Goya,  Francisco,  264 
Graham,  Peter,  315,  343 
Gregory,  E.  J.,  329 
Greiffeuhagen,  Maurice,  311-12 
Greuze,  J.  B.,  9,  39 
Gros,  A.  J.,  55,  213 
Gu^rin,  Pierre,  55 
Guillaumet,  Gustave,  228 
Guillaumin,  107,  210 
Gurney,  Mi-s.  Russell,  183 
Guthrie,  Sir  James,  365 

Hacker,  Arthur,  310,  366 
Hals,  Frans,  108-9,  114,  233 
Hamerton,    Philip  Gilbert,    31 

33 
Harding,  Chester,  267 
Harpignies,  Henri,  64-5 
Harrison,  Alexander,  272 
Hassam,  Childe,  27  s 
Healy,  G.  P.  A.,  268 
Hubert,  Ernest,  223 
Homy,  C.  Napier,  344-5 


Henner,  Charles,  215 
Henry,  George,  374 
Henry,  J.  L  ,  374 
Herbert,  George,  371 
Herkomer,     Sir    Hubert,     307, 

327-9 

Hermans,  Charles,  247 

Heyraans,  Joseph,  250 

Hildebrandt,  Theodor,  253 

Hinton,  James,  90-3,  96 

Hitchcock,  George,  272 

Hogarth,  William,  9,  21,  151, 
169,  170 

Holl,  Frank,  324-5 

Holmes,  C.  J.,  372,  375 

Homer,  Winslow,  270 

Hook,  J.  C,  340 

Hornel,  E.  A.,  363 

Horsley,  J.  C,  313 

Hueffer,  Ford  Madox,  21,  149 

Hughes,  Arthur,  159 

Humbert,  Ferdinand,  225 

Hunt,  A.  W.,  349 

Hunt,  W.  Holman,  14,  i-jdseq., 
21  et  seq.,  34  et  seq.,  40  et  seq., 
45.  47-8,  50,  70,  72,  77»  95, 
129  et  seq.,  146-7,  156,  163, 
166-7,  173,  177-8,  184,  18S, 
191,  195,  280,  306,  307,  362, 

379 
Hunt,  William  Morris,  269 
Hunter,  Colin,  344 
Huntingdon,  Daniel,  268 

Inohbold,  J.  W.,  166 

Ingres,  Jean-Auguste  Dominique, 

Inman,  Henry,  267 
Inness,  George,  267 
Isham,  Samuel,  269,    275,   321, 

322,  378 
Israels,  Josef,  238  et  seq. 

Japanese  Art,  125  et  seq. 
Jefferies,  Richard,  194 
Jongkind,  J.  B.,  4,  73-4,  78 

Keats,  John,  179 
Keene,  Charles,  60 
Keyser,  Nicaise  de,  245 
Khnopff,  Fernand,  248 


388 


FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTJNG 


Klinger,  Max,  260 
Knaus,  Louis,  255 
Knight,  J.  Buxton,  373 
Knight,  J.  Ridgway,  272 
Kuyff,  Alfred  de,  249 

La  Farge,  John,  269 

La  Gandara,  264 

La  Thangue,  H.  H.,  330,   333, 

Landseer,  Sir  Edwin,  337,  338 

Lang,  Andrew,  142 

Langley,  Walter,  330 

Lathrop,  Francis,  270 

Lauder,  Robert  Scott,  314 

Laurens,  J.  P.,  230 

La  very,  John,  336,  364 

Lawless,  M.  J.,  161 

Lawson,  Cecil,  350 

Lawson,  William,  350 

Le  Sidaner,  208 

Leader,  B.  W.,  342 

Lefebvre,  Jules,  215 

Legros,  Alphonse,  229 

Leighton,   Frederick,  Lord,   282 

etseq.,  299,  307,  367 
Lenbach,  Franz,  257 
Leslie,  C.  R.,  267,  313 
Leslie,  G.  D.,  163,  329 
Leutze,  Emanuel,  268 
Lewis,  J.  F.,  163,  281-2 
Leys,  Henri,  245 
L'Hermitte,  Leon,  195 
Liebermann,  Max,  261 
Lindner,  Moffat,  353 
Linnell,  John,  340 
Linnell,  J.  T,,  340 
Linnell,  William,  340 
Lippi,  Lippo,  112 
Lockwood,  Wilton,  274 
Loti,  Pierre,  197 
Loudan,  Mouat,  365 
Low,  WillH.,  273 
Lowell,  J.  Russell,  12 
Lucas,  Seymour,  315 
Luminals,  230 

Maccallum,  H.  H.,  345 
l\racColl,  D.  S.,  375 
Maclise,  Daniel,  313 
McEvoy,  A.,  375 


McEwen,  Walter,  272 
McLachlan,T.  H.,  351 
McWhirter,  J.,  366 
Madrazo,  Federico,  264 
Makart,  Hans,  255 
Manet,    Edouard,    58,    80,    81, 

83,  90,   106,   108  et  seq.,   128, 

148 
Marilhat,  Prosper,  227 
Maris,  James,  242 
Maris,  Matthew,  242 
Maris,  William,  242 
Mai;tin,  Henri,  225 
Martin,  Homer  D.,  268 
Martineau,  Robert,  161,  162 
Mason,  George,  193,  317  tt  seq.^ 

321 
Maufra,  Maxime,  207 
Mauve,  Anton,  241 
May,  Edward  Harrison,  269 
Meissonier,  Ernest,  213  et  scq.^ 

268 
Melchers,  Gari,  272 
Melville,  Arthur,  365 
Menard,  Emile  Rene,  226 
Mengs,  Anton  Rafael,  251 
Menzel,  Adolf,  256 
Mesdag,  H.  W.,  243 
Meunier,  Constantin,  59, 66,  193, 

245  et  seq. 
Michel,  Georges,  9,  61 
Michie,  Coutts,  365 
Millais,  Sir  J.  E.,  17,  18,  27,  28, 

34  fd  seq.,  40  et  seq.,  70,   77, 

95,   117,    120,  129  etseq.,   134 

et  seq.,  145  et  seq.,  156  etseq., 

163,  166-7,   177-8,  182,  184  et 

seq.,  188,  280,  306-7. 
Millais,  Sir  J.  G.,  135 
Millet,  F.  D.,  270,  316 
Millet,  Jean  Fran9ois,  60,  62,  65 

etseq.,  71,  97,  143,  193  e<  seq., 

239 
Monet,  Claude  Oscar,  77,  80  et 

seq.,  g^  etseq.,  107,   115,    116, 

128,   207  et  seq. 
Monticelli,  Adolphe,  229 
Moore,    Albert,   291,   293,   299, 

307 
Moore,  George,  36  etseq.,  90,  iii- 
12,  122,  325,  355,  364 


INDEX 


389 


Moore,  Henry,  165 

Moreau    Gustave,    no,    217-18, 

225 
Morelli,  Domenico,  265 
Morisot,  Berthe,  106,  234 
Morot,  Aime,  213 
t        Morris,  William,  156,  168,  173, 

I7S-6,  180,  199 
Miiller,  Victor,  75 
Muller,  W.J.,  280 
M already,  William,  313 
Munkacsy,  Michael,  260 
Murray,  David,  346,  347 
Muther,  Richard,  116,  123,  187, 

363 

Navez,  Franjoia,  244 
Neagle,  John,  267 
Nettleship,  J.  T.,  337-8 
Neulmys,  Albert,  244 
Neuville,  Alphonse  de,  213 
Newton,  G.  S.,  267 
Nittis,  Giuseppe  de,  202 
Nordau,  Max,  224 
North,  J.  W.,  342 

Olsson,  Julius,  353 
Orchardson,    W.    Quiller,    315, 

323-4 
Orpeu,  William,  374 
Overbeck,  Friedrich,  17,  252 

Parsons,  Alfred,  347 

Paterson,  James,  365 

Paton,  Sir  J.  Noel,  184 

Peppercorn,  A.  D.,  374 

Pettie,  John,  314 

Phillip,  John,  314 

Piloty,  Karl,  255 

Pissarro,  Camille,  77,  79  etseq., 

96  et  seq.,  208 
Pissarro,  Lucien,  368 
Pointelin,  A.  E.,  209 
Poole,  P.  F.,  313 
Pope,  Alexander,  214 
Powers,  Hiram,  282 
Poynter,   Sir    E.   J.,   287,    299, 

307 
Pradilla,  Francisco,  264 
Priestman,  Bertram,  374 


Prinsep,  Valentine,  168,  178 
Prudhon,  Pierre-Paul,  55 
Puvis  de  Chavannes,    180,   217, 
220  et  seq. 

Raffaelli,  Jean  Fran9ois,  198  et 
seq. 

Raffet,  A.  M.,  213 

Ranger,  H.  W.,  275 

Redgrave,  33,  87,  33^ 

Regnault,  Henri,  55,  230 

Reid,  J.  R.,  329 

Reid,  R.,  273 

Renoir,  Pierre- Auguste,  103  et 
seq.^  121,  128,  143 

Rethel,  Alfred,  253 

Ribot,  Th^odule,  230 

Ricard,  Gustave,  232 

Richmond,  Sir  William  B.,  309 

Richter,  Ludwig,  255 

Rico,  Martin,  264 

Riviere,  Briton,  337-8 

Robert-Fleury,  Nicolas,  229 

Robinson,  Cay  ley,  186 

Robson,  61 

Roche,  Alexander,  365 

Rochegrosse,  Georges,  230 

Rodin,  Auguste,  233 

Roll,  Alfred,  198 

Rooke,  T.  M.,  184 

Rops,  Felicien,  248 

Rossetti,  Dante  G.,  17, 18,  28,  29, 
35  et  seq. ,  40  et  seq. ,  47  et  seq. , 
129  et  seq.,  138-9,  163,  167 
etseq.,  177-8,  181-2,  184,  186, 
191,  280,  306,  307 

Rossetti,  W.  M.,  28,  41,  42,  43, 
186 

Rothenstein,  William,  374 

Rousseau,  Theodore,  62  et  seq. 

Roybet,  Ferdinand,  230 

Rubens,  P.  P.,  124 

Ruskin,  John,  23,  26,  29  et  seq., 
35,  47,  48-9,  64,  66,  76,  136, 
159  et  seq.,  162  et  seq.,  176  et 
seq.,  214,  281,  336,  357,  382 

Russell,  W.  W.,374 

Sadler,  W.  Dendy,  316 
Sandys,  Frederic,  181 


390 


FIFTY  YEARS   OF  MODERN  PAINTING 


Sargent,  J.    S.,   270,   274,  365, 


367,  375  et  seq. 


Scheffer,  Ary,  216 

Schlegel,  Frederick,  252 

Schnorr,  Julius,  252 

Schrader,  Julius,  255 

Schwind,  Moritz,  254 

Scott,  William  Bell,  163 

Segantini,  Giovanni,  265 

Seurat,  210 

Shannon,  C.  H.,  311 

Sharp,  William,  168 

Shaw,  By  am,  186 

Shields,  Frederic,  182 

Sickert,  Walter,  371 

Signac,  Paul,  210 

Sisley,  Alfred,  99,  100 

Sizeranne,  Robert  de  la,  8,  13, 
19,  39,  53,  "7,  140,  186,  191, 
236,  237,  278-9,  292-3,  294, 
338 

Smallfield,  Frederick,  161 

Solomon,  S.  J.,  366 

Spencer,  Herbert,  188 

Stanhope,  Spencer,  173,  )8i 

Steer,  P.  Wilson,  364,  372 

Steinbruck,  Eduard,  253 

Steinle,  Edward,  252 

Stephens,  F.  G.,  28,  41-2 

Stevens,  Alfred,  246-7 

Stewart,  Julius  L.,  271 

Stillman,  Mrs.  M.  S.,  184 

Stobbaerts,  Jan,  246 

Stokes,  Adrian,  353 

Stone,  Marcus,  322 

Storey,  G.  A.,  163,  329 

Story,  Julian,  272 

Stott,  Edward,  352 

Stott,  William,  353 

Strud^vick,  J.  M.,  182,  188 

Stuart,  C.  G.,  267 

Stuck,  Franz,  260 

Swan,  J.  M.,  337-8 

Swinburne,  A.  G.,  293 

Swynnerton,  Mrs.  A.  L.,  306 

Tadema,  Sir  Laurens  Alma,  289, 

299,  307 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  132, 140, 

150,  161,  305,  379 
Thaulow,  Fritz,  263 


Thayer,  A.  H.,  273 
Thoraa,  Hans,  259 
Thomas,  Grosvenor,  365 
Thomson,  Leslie,  347 
Tissot,  James,  201 
Titian,  124,  169,  215 
Toulouse-Lautrec,  210 
Troyon,  Constant,  63,  65 
Trumbull,  John,  267 
Tryon,  Dwight,  W.,  275 
Tuke,  H.  S.,  330,  345,  366 
Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  2,  3,   7,   50, 

31  etseq.,  67,  75,  77,  82,   191, 

204,  237,  279 

Udhe,  Fritz  Yon,  260 

Van  Eyck,  126 

Van  Eyckeu,  245 

Van  Gogh,  210 

Van  Rysselberghe,  Theo,  210 

Varley,  John,  61 

Vautier,  Benjamin,  255 

Vedder,  Elihu,  269 

Velasquez,  87,  109 

Vernet,  Horace,  213 

Vincent,  George,  55 

Vignon,  97 

VoUon,  Antoine,  230 

Vuillard,  210 

Wackenroder,  252 
Waite,  R.  Thome,  347 
Walker,    Frederick,     193,    317, 

319  e<  seq. 
Walker,  Horatio,  274 
Wallis,  Henry,  162 
Walton,  E.  A.,  365 
Wappers,  Baron,  156,  244 
Ward,  E.  M.,  313 
Ward,  James,  337 
Watelet,  61 

Waterhouse,  J.  W\,  308 
Waterlow,  Sir  E.  A.,  346 
Watteau,  9 
Watts,   G.   F.,    77,    294  et  seq., 

335 
Wauters,  Eniile,  248 
Webbe,  W.  J.,  161 
Webster,  T.,  313 
Weekes,  Edwin  Lord,  272 


INDEX 


391 


Weir,  J.  Alden,  273 

West,   Sir    Benjamin,    56,   266, 

267 
"Whaite,  H.  Clarence,  349 
Whistler,  J.   McNeill,   68,  270, 

355  e<  seq. 
Wiles,  Irving  R. ,  274 
Wilkie,  Sir  I)avid,  169 
Windus,  W.  L.,  159  et  seq. 
Woods,  Henry,  329 


Woolner,  Thomas,  28,  41 
Wyant,  A.  H.,  268 
Wyllie,  C.  W.,  345 
Wyllie,  W.  L.,  345 

Yeamcs,  W.  F.,  314 

Zorn,  Anders,  263 
Zuloaga,  Ignacio,  264-5 


WILUAM   BRBNDON  AND  SON,   LTD. 
PRINTERS,   PLYMOUTH 


^'7 


7 


RETURN         CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

TO  "^^         Main  Library  •  198  Main  Stacks 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS. 

Renewls  and  Recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  the  due  date. 

Books  may  be  Renewed  by  calling  642-3405. 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

FED-l;    ;, 

FORM  NO.  DD6 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
BERKELEY  CA  94720-6000 


oK/  <^  S7 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


